High School Rejects
by ChloeJK
Summary: Evan Hansen loves to sing. It's the one thing he has that makes his empty home seem a little less lonely-a self-soothing technique that let's him pretend he's not so broken. But as much as he enjoys it,he never would never perform in front of anyone other than his own reflection. Then Connor Murphy from his favorite local rock band sat by his tree and changes his life forever.
1. Chapter 1

Evan Hansen was not having a good day. The skin under his cast itch. He had hit his funny bone while in the shower. And now, he was hungry, but all they had in the fridge was Alfredo pasta his Mom had made three nights ago and Evan knew for a fact that the Alfredo had sat on the stove top all night before it had been refrigerated and he wasn't about to risk food poisoning. Mom had left him twenty bucks for pizza, but the idea of talking to a pizza delivery person who probably went to the same school as him was unbearable. Evan, despite hating talking, hated silence even more. When the delivery person made change for the twenty dollars, Evan would feel compelled to say something, probably about the weather or maybe about the itchy skin under his cast, and then the pizza delivery person would tell all his friends at school just how much of an awkward freak Evan Hansen really was. He thought the cherry topper to this no good day would be trying to sleep while desperately avoiding thinking of school. Tomorrow would be the first day of his senior year, which meant tomorrow would be a a battle of claims. Claiming a new locker. Claiming new seats in the classroom. Claiming a spot in the cafeteria. Claiming a spot in the school quad when he would inevitably avoid eating in the cafeteria. Every claim risked confrontation. And if that weren't enough, both his therapist and mom decided that it was time to change his entire social paradigm and try to connect with people. To make friends. To put himself out there for rejection.

But these thoughts were nothing. Well, that wasn't true. They were enough to keep him awake at night and plan for worst case scenarios. But he was accustomed to these obsessive thoughts. Evan really couldn't remember a time where he didn't have obsessive thoughts. But they were _nothing_ compared to the horrifying message Jared just sent him.

 **JARED:** Holy shit. Zombie Unicorn is breaking up. Twitter is losing their fucking minds!

For a long moment, Evan just stared. Jared sent the twitter link next. He numbly tapped it and there it was, written on the social media account of his favorite band.

 **Zombie Unicorn**  
 _ZombieUnicornBand_  
After two years, the members of Zombie Unicorn are splitting up. Thanks for all the memories! Follow TheMoonBandMan and LittleDrummerGirl for more details.

That was it. No other explanation. No previous tweets that hinted that the Evan's music world was coming to an end. He swallowed hard and swiped back to his messenger app.

 **EVAN** : Do you know why they broke up?

 **JARED** : Apparently, Neil and Natalie were signed by a record label.

 **EVAN** : Why just them?

 **JARED** : Who the hell knows?

 **EVAN** : Is it because Zoe and Connor are minors? Maybe their parents want them to finish high school?

 **JARED** : Or maybe it's because Connor is a fucking psycho and they're worried crazy runs in the family?

 **EVAN** : Zoe isn't crazy.

 **JARED** : Crazy hot though, amiright?

 **EVAN** : I got to go.

 **JARED** : Don't break your arm with all your sad wanks ;)

Evan closed the messenger app with shaking fingers. He wasn't numb anymore. Far from it. His heart was racing. His eyes couldn't focus. His lungs couldn't expand. His shakes got so bad that his phone fumbled out of his hands and on to his bed. He should do those breathing exercises or distraction tactics Dr. Sherman had taught him at his first therapy appointment two years ago. Instead, Evan pulled out his laptop from the nightstand and opened it on his lap. His fingers tapped only a few letters before "YouTube Zombie Unicorn" popped up from his search history. Within a minute, the live version of Zombie Unicorn's "Rockstar Mermaid Bra" came on the screen.

Here's the thing. Evan didn't know much about music. Or at least, he didn't know much about musical instruments. The only thing he felt a little bit knowledgeable on (and by little he means extremely little because he's Evan Hansen and the only thing he was an expert on is trees) was singing. Neil Armstrung was a pretty good singer. Despite Evan not liking loud noises, he really admired the way Neil could shout some of his notes in that screamy yet musical way. But when it came to everything else, Evan had no idea. He thought Natalie Cho was a good drummer—the only other comparison he knew was Jared who occasionally played the drum set when Evan came over if Evan was too nervous to play Call of Duty. Neil seemed decent on the guitar. And no one seemed more dedicated to his instrument than Connor did on the bass. But it was Zoe Murphy, the lead guitarist, who had captured his attention.

The Murphy siblings were something of a legend at his school. He'd never forget that day in fourth grade when all the students in his class went to the band classroom. They were supposed to try out the instruments to see if they'd be interested in joining band next year. He remembered how nervous Mr. Van Brugen was as he kept a careful eye on Connor who kept picking up woodwind and brass instruments and staring at them like they were pieces of garbage. Not that Evan blamed Mr. Van Brugen at the time. Saxophones were considerably more expensive than printers and Connor had gotten a reputation for his anger even at that point.

But when Connor picked up a guitar, his face changed. When he strummed a note, his eyes furrowed in concentration. By the end of the period, he could play "All Star" by Smashmouth. Everyone was impressed, even if the chords were a little off because Connor didn't have the proper finger strength. For a brief moment, Connor was the coolest kid in their class. Then Mr. Van Brugen asked him if he were interested in band and Connor responded by tossing the guitar on the ground, flipping the teacher off, and saying "fuck that." He got sent to the principle's office and that was the end of Connor's school music career and popularity.

But if Connor was gifted at the guitar, Zoe was a gift. Obviously, Evan didn't share any music classes with her since she was a year younger than him, but he heard the rumors. How she was a prodigy. How she learned all the guitar chords within the first week of band. How she could play solos meant for high school students. By the time she was a freshman in high school, she was the jazz band's lead guitarist. And after the jazz band's first performance, her legendary status was sealed. Even Evan went to one of her jazz concerts, despite the auditorium being filled with people and being forced to sit next to strangers. He was scared for her when she stood up. The idea of standing in spotlight while hundreds of people stared at you was on the top five list of recurring Evan Hansen nightmares. But she was fearless. Her face held no tension, only a gentle smile. And even though her fingers flew in a furious dance, her eyes closed as though she were in meditation. When she finished, the parents and students who had been half-heartedly applauding for all the other performances stood up to give her a standing ovation.

A lot of people were disappointed when she quit jazz band to join a local rock band. The whispers grew even worse when they realized her brother had also been recruited. Evan overheard Zoe talking to her parents on the phone one day shortly after she had joined the Zombie Unicorn, (which had been a pure coincidence because Evan just happened to be standing in the school parking lot because he _certainly_ wouldn't follow her or stalk her as Jared so often teased him because if there was one thing about Evan was that he respected people's need for personal space) and she'd been yelling that she didn't care if a jazz band looked better on a college resume and that it wasn't her job to keep her brother out of trouble. She had walked around school looking tired for weeks. Then someone recorded "Rockstar Mermaid Bra" at one of their concerts and they had gone viral.

Evan sat on his bad, silently mouthing the lyrics with Neil. Like most of their songs, it had a silly theme—this one being about the star shapes on mermaid bras—but it had a deeper meaning behind it. On how it was okay to dress the way you wanted, even if it made other people uncomfortable. It spoke a lot to the band's aesthetic. Zoe dyed her hair every color of the rainbow. Natalie's self-proclaimed fashion icon was "Emo Hello Kitty." Neil frequently wore kilts and pigtails. And Connor… well, he painted his fingernails, which wasn't really much compared to the rest of the band, but it was something.

The reason why this particular video had gone viral was without a doubt Zoe's doing. That night her hair was dyed red and she had dressed in a bustier with teal sequin stars. Matched with her skinny jeans, boots, and new nose piercing, she looked like a rockstar Ariel. The video had closed in on her during her solo, when she had her eyes closed and that small smile on her lips. When her solo ended, she flipped her hair, opened her eyes directly to the camera, and winked. If Evan hadn't fallen in love with her before, he would have then.

But the panic over Zombie Unicorn breaking up wasn't about Zoe. Or, at least, it wasn't only about Zoe. Mostly, it was about Evan. More than anything, Evan had wanted to go to one of their concerts. He almost did, twice. But each time he had spiraled into a panic attack in his mom or Jared's car. School concerts in the school auditorium were one thing. Concert venues and bars were something else entirely. What if the music was too loud and he had a panic attack? What if someone tried to give him drugs? What if he accidentally tripped and stumbled into someone and they punched him in the face? His mom had driven him home the first time and Jared had left him in the parking lot the second time. Evan had been disappointed with himself, but he wasn't disheartened. Because he thought he had time to get better. It had even been the subject of his Dear Evan Hansen letters once or twice, how he would reward himself by going to a Zombie Unicorn concert once he could manage his symptoms. But now, that would never happen.

One more reason why Evan Hansen was a failure.

His phone rang and disrupted his thoughts. He flipped his phone on the bed and looked at the screen. It was his mom. Evan slammed his laptop shut and leaped to his feet. He paced the room, shaking his hands, doing his best to breathe. He had five rings until it went to voicemail. Five rings until Mom would worry and call again and ask too many questions on how he was doing and did he order pizza and does she need to come home and so on and so forth. When the fifth ring came, Evan snatched the phone off the bed and answered it.

"Yeah, hello, it's Evan."

His mom laughed a bit. "Yes. Hi Evan. It's good that it's you answering your own phone."

"Right, right." He pulled the phone away to take a deep breath. "So what's up?"

"Just checking in. Did you order that pizza?"

"Not yet."

"It's after eight."

"I had a late lunch."

"Evan."

"Mom, it's fine."

"Fine, fine." She sighed and Evan instantly felt that knife of guilt. He hated making his mother worry. But before he could stammer out an apology, she continued. "I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna be home until tomorrow morning. Rachel called in sick and guess who got stuck pulling a double. But come hell or high water, you will have your first day of school pancakes. I promise."

"You don't have to—"

"I want to. Now, tell me about your day."

The rest of the conversation (which lasted only a few minutes until Mom got called off her fifteen minute break early due to her patient falling out of their bed) was spent Evan trying to make his day seem interesting. Considering all he had done was pour over his class schedule, memorize his classroom locations, and obsessively match his notebooks and binders by color to each class, he had his work cut out for him. When it was time for his Mom to go, it was a sweet relief. But the relief only lasted a few minutes before he realized he was alone and hungry, school was tomorrow, and Zombie Unicorn was still broken up.

It was so hard to be by himself in moments like this. Part of him wanted to open his laptop to YouTube and obsessively watch Zombie Unicorn clips until he passed out from exhaustion. But part of him worried that watching Zombie Unicorn would spiral the feelings inside of him until they were out of control and then it would be that day in the park again when Evan was on the branch of the tree and he looked down and he began to wonder if he was too high or not high enough.

Evan pinched his nose. He was doing it again. Thinking. Spiraling. He looked to the bedroom wall. Mrs. Lindgren, their twin home neighbor who shared a wall with the Hansens, probably wouldn't mind. She always said she never minded. But it was almost nine o'clock and she was old and she needed sleep and the last thing Evan wanted was to inconvenience anyone. He ran down the stairs and then again to the basement. Evan didn't like being in the basement. The floor was cement, there was spiderwebs in the pipes, and the furnace made weird noises. But it was the most soundproof room in the house and Evan didn't think he could hold back.

He took a deep breath.

And started to sing.

* * *

"Dude, didn't I warn you not to break your arm with the sad wanks last night?"

"Ha ha." Evan's voice was a little raspy. He had spent hours last night singing. If he were a few years younger, he would have lost his voice entirely the next day. But in the last few years—and after scattered impromptu voice lessons from Mrs. Lindgren next door—he knew how to take care of his vocal cords.

Jared leans in close. "Paint me a picture. You're in your bedroom, you've got one of Unicorn Zombie's videos up on your weird, off-brand cell phone—"

"That's not what happened!" Evan hissed, looking furiously around to make sure no one overheard. "I was, um, well I was climbing a tree. And I fell."

"You fell out of tree? What are you, an acorn?"

Evan proceeded to tell the whole story. How he was an apprentice park ranger at Ellison State Park. How he was a tree expert. How he climbed a oak tree forty feet into the air. And then how he fell and it was super funny how he just laid on the ground waiting for someone to come only to have no one come and hahaha wasn't that just so hilarious?

"Jesus Christ." Jared looked at Evan and Evan now knew that it had been a huge mistake to say anything because now Jared thought he was a bigger loser than he had been junior year and God he needed to change the subject.

"So what did you do this summer?"

Jared, fortunately, was happy to change the topic. About how band camp was amazing, how all the ladies fawned over his incredibly cool self, and how one girl from Israel let him… well, do stuff. Then Evan tried to make him sign his cast if only to hide his embarrassment.

"Why are you asking me?" Jared said slowly.

"Well, I thought, because we're friends—"

"We're not friends, Hansen. We're family friends. That's a whole different thing and you know it." He stepped forward, dodging the sharpie to punch Evan in the arm. "But hey, tell your mom I was nice so my parents keep paying for my car insurance."

It hurt. It shouldn't hurt. Evan should known better. But it still hurt to hear Jared reject him. Would it have been easier to swallow had he not written his Dear Evan Hansen letter this morning? All those letters seem to do was have him write out his deepest wishes only to confront how he failed fulfilling them the next day. This year was going to be different? Who was he kidding.

"Hey, Connor." Jared suddenly said. Evan's shoulders shoot up as he peered behind him. Sure, enough it was Connor Murphy.

It always seemed odd to Evan that people like Zoe and Connor Murphy still went to school. They were bona fide rockstars. They had things like gigs, fans, and CD cases with their faces on it. But they still came to school. They still had homework. Zoe at least made sense. The things from her rockstar life trickled into her school life. She had friends constantly surrounding her and people constantly crushing on her. But Connor was always alone, which seemed odd with all the fans screaming love for him in all caps online.

"Is it true you smashed your bass guitar into Neil's windshield last night?" Jared said. "How psycho rocker of you."

And suddenly, Evan was very scared for Jared.

Connor slowly turned. He didn't say anything. Only stared.

"I was kidding. It was a joke," Jared backpedaled.

"Yeah, no, it was funny." Connor deadpanned. He stepped closer. "Can't you tell? Am I not laughing hard enough for you?"

Jared mumbled something that sounded like freak and ran away and Evan was so grateful that nothing worse had happened that he let out an awkward laugh. Of course, this turned out to be the worst thing to do because Connor's eyes, which had previously been tired and steel, turned to him and became fire and rage.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" Connor said, stomping toward him.

Evan shook his head, his brain desperately trying to think of any word but, "What?"

"Stop fucking laughing at me."

"I'm not"

"You think I'm a freak?"

"No, I—"

"I'm not the freak."

"I wasn't—"

"You're the fucking freak!"

And suddenly Connor's hands were on his chest and Evan was falling. And he should have just accepted it. He should accepted he was falling like he accepted he was falling out of that old oak tree this summer and accepted that there would be pain and humiliation and that he would have to get up off that floor alone like he got up alone with a broken arm. But his body refused to cooperate. So instead of falling, self-preservation forced Evan to grab hold of the thing closest to him, which just so happened to be the very person who caused him to fall. But instead of keeping him upright, Evan only pulled Connor down with him like a person drowning in water.

"Fuck!" Connor shouted. Only it's muffled, because Connor face-planted into his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Evan rasped.

"Move!"

Evan desperately tried to worm away from Connor, but the metal clasps of Connor's boots had tangled into his shoelaces. "I'm trying."

"Try harder."

"I—Augh!"

In Connor's desperate attempts to separate himself, he ended up pushing against Evan. Unfortunately for Evan, the spot he pushed against just happened to be his broken arm.

Connor froze. "Shit… Hansen? Are you… are you okay?"

Evan desperately wanted to say he's okay. He desperately wanted to say he's fine and that he's sorry for laughing and for pulling him down and for getting stuck in Connor's boots. But the pain was too much and made him too honest, so he said, "No."

Somehow, Connor unhooked his boot from Evan's shoe laces. Then, he did something that shocked Evan to the core. Connor reached out for Evan's good arm with his calloused hand and gently lifted him to his feet. Yet fespite how gentle his actions were, his face still looked barely contained with the rage. Thankfully, instead of just blasting it out, Connor kept it locked away, biting his lip to prevent it from escaping. Evan cradled his cast and stole a glance to Connor. "Thanks for, uh, helping me up."

Connor ran a hand through his hair. "Do you need to go the doctor?"

"I, uh, don't think so." His arm was throbbing and the skin under his cast was getting uncomfortably hot and tight. "I'll just, um, get some pain meds and an ice pack from the nurse's office."

Connor kept biting his lip. After a moment, he drummed his chipped fingernails against the canvas of his messenger bag. He kept staring at Evan and Evan didn't know how to handle it.

"How'd you break your arm, Hansen?"

It was the last thing Evan expected. Connor was prolonging the conversation. He had just shoved him and called him a freak and now he was talking to him.

"I… fell out of a tree."

Connor stopped drumming on his bag and, miraculously, a sideways smile peeked at the corner of his mouth. "That is just the saddest fucking thing I've ever heard."

Evan's mouth twitched back. "I know."

"No one's signed your cast."

"Uh, no. Not yet."

"I'll sign it."

Dumbly, Evan dug the sharpie out of his pocket and handed it over. Evan couldn't hide the yelp that escaped his lips when Connor yanked his cast a bit too harshly. Connor paused, looked at Evan briefly, before signing. Evan twitched. If he had done what Connor had done, he had said sorry so many times that he would have passed out. But Connor hadn't apologized. At least, not in the normal way. Evan couldn't help notice (and maybe appreciate?) the difference.

When Connor finished, the entire side of Evan's cast was covered in his name. "Now we can both pretend that we have friends," Connor said and passed back the sharpie.

"You have friends." Evan stuttered.

The hint of a smile disappeared. "Are you the expert of my life now?"

"Sorry. No. It's just… you're…"

"A bass guitar player for a local band that never made a full album or played a venue with more than a hundred people?"

"But Facebook—"

"Loves Zoe and couldn't give a shit about the rest of us."

"That's not true."

"Why don't you shut up because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about?"

Then the bell rang and it was like the signal Connor been waiting for. He punched the lockers Evan didn't realize he had backed up against. When he stormed away, Evan turned around shaking. There, only inches from his head, was a freshly dented locker and Evan could only wonder if Connor had missed his true target.

* * *

The school day ended. No one else signed his cast. He had sat alone during lunch. And now he was in the computer lab, staring at his pathetic excuse of a letter.

 _Dear Evan Hansen,_

 _Today was not an amazing day. It won't be an amazing week or amazing year. Because why would it be?_

 _I don't even have Zombie Unicorn anymore. All my hope was pinned on attending one of their shows and now they're broken up. Maybe if I could talk to Zoe that would be enough. Maybe things would be different. But I talked to Connor and nothing changed at all._

 _I wish everything was different. I wish I was a part of something. The same something I use to feel when I listened to Zombie Unicorn. I just want to matter. To anyone. But let's face it: if I disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice?_

 _Sincerely, your best and most dearest friend,_

 _Me_

It had taken him longer to write it than it should have. By the time he pressed print, everyone in the computer lab had left. When he walked to the printer, his feet felt heavy. When he opened the lab room's door, his hands felt too large for his body. When he walked down the empty school hallways, he felt small. Too small to live in a world so big and so full of… everything. It should scare Evan, but instead he felt numb.

This wasn't a new feeling for Evan, and were he capable of emotion, he might be worried about that. But instead, he simply walked and thought of trees and wondered how hard it might be to climb with a cast on his arm.

As he walked, his footsteps echoed step by step. But then those echoes were joined by something else. Music. Numbly, he kept walking and the music grew louder as he approached the band room. Guitars. Odd. As far as he could tell, the same melody was being played over and over. Something that built in intensity before erupting into something huge. When he was right outside the classroom, he peered through the window and saw them. Connor and Zoe. They were sitting across from each other, each with a guitar in their lap: Zoe's, her own. Connor's, one borrowed from the band's closet. The music had stopped and they were talking. And for some reason, Evan's feet didn't move. He kept watching until Connor's words morphed into shouting until finally he tossed the guitar on the ground with a god awful twang before rushing to the door. The door where Evan was standing. He barely jumped out of the way before Connor slammed it open.

"Sorry, I, uh…"

Connor stopped, mid-rage. "Hansen? Are you creeping on my sister?"

"No. I was, uh just …"

"Stay the fuck away from Zoe!"

Evan watched Connor walk away with a sense of finality. Again. Evan had screwed up again.

"Hey, are you okay?"

And suddenly Zoe was there and Evan waited for his heart to kick start into a blind panic. It did lurch, a little. But that wrongness from earlier didn't disappear. If anything, it became more amplified when placed next to something so perfect.

"I'm fine."

Zoe was leaning against the doorway. Her guitar was still slung over her shoulder and she stared down the hallways with an unreadable expression.

"Sorry my brother's such a psycho."

"I don't… I don't think."

Before he could finish his thought, Zoe closed the door and went back to the band room to practice. She was too distracted to talk to Evan. That's fine. He wouldn't talk to him either if he had the option. So Evan kept walking. Down the hallways. Out the school. Out the school property. But he didn't turn left, the direction of Dr. Sherman.

Evan turned right instead.

* * *

By the time he made it to Ellison State Park, the sun had almost set. He must have walked five miles. The empty feeling had disappeared, but not his sense of empty purpose. Numbness had been replaced by oversensitivity. The roar of passing cars sent his skin on edge and the smell of forest made the air taste like green. Thinking was bad. So Evan had succumbed to humming. But not radio songs. He was humming the song he heard the Murphy siblings play over and over in the high school band room. The more he hummed it, the deeper he connected it to his emotions. And soon, he had words.

 _When you've fallen in a forest, and nobody's around, do you ever really crash or even make a sound?_

He kept repeating it obsessively and when he got to the chorus he cut to the heart of his loneliness. It didn't make him feel better, but it slowly lessened the dense feeling in his chest.

He was a bit worried as he passed through the front gate of the park. There were a few cars in the lot, but they were probably just the park rangers. Having worked there all summer, he knew the rangers would stay at the registration cabin or patrol the campground during sunset hours. The forests and the trails would be free of people.

In less than twenty minutes, he found his oak tree. It was the beacon and Evan was the fly drawn to its light. He stumbled over roots. He kicked up clumps of grass. Evan couldn't keep his eyes off the branches. And when he got to the base of the tree, he didn't even plot out his climbing path. He just set down his backpack and pulled himself up with his one good arm.

It was slow going but eventually he climbed up to the top. Higher than he had climbed before. He didn't look down. It wasn't a refusal born from fear, but of focus. Evan wanted to spend his time in the tree as peacefully as possible.

But he was nervous. Over-sensitized. And he was beginning to over think. And he was so _tired_ of over-thinking everything. He knew why he did it. It made things less painful to assume the worst so you wouldn't be disappointed when things ended up exactly the way you planned it. But it was like living in a war zone, only there was no hope of escaping it because the war zone existed in his head. So he quieted the battle the only way he knew how. He began to sing. And he didn't just hum and mumble like he had the walk over. He sang the way he sang in the sanctity of his home. Raw, loud, and full of emotion.

For the first time since he printed his letter, he truly let himself feel and think back to that day in the forest. He was so sick of this perpetual loneliness and constant sense of failure. How did people connect? How did people find meaning in the day-to-day? He ended the song on that note of desperation, of wanting. His breath shuddered, trying to recover.

And then he heard the sound of clapping.

Mortified, Evan looked below. Down the sixty feet. Down the distance that had a higher likelihood of succeeding where forty feet had failed, was none other than Connor Murphy, sitting by the tree on the opposite side Evan had climbed from.

The claps were sloppy. Connor kept smacking his hands together, but occasionally they would miss. And sometimes, Connor's head would loll to the side as though he was struggling to keep it upright.

"Connor!?"

The clapping stopped and Connor said something. But the words were so mumbled that Evan couldn't make them out across the distance. He didn't know what to do. Should he stay in the tree and wait for Connor to leave? Should he climb down and give him space?

In the end, it was Connor throwing up that made the decision for him.

He scrambled down the tree quickly, scrapping his hands, arms, and face as he passed through the branches. At the bottom he jumped, falling to the ground when he landed in the grass. And when he scrambled over to Connor, nausea passed through him. Not because of the vomit, even though it was gross and rancid and forced Evan to breathe through his mouth. But because of the empty orange pill bottles sitting beside Connor and the glazed expression on Connor's face.

Evan hovered at first, not sure what to do. Connor looked so horrible. He was pale, sweaty, and looked to be in pain. But through it all, he gave Evan that same sideways smile he had given him that morning in the school hallway.

"You've got a fucking beautiful voice, Hansen."

Then he puked again. And again. And again until he passed out against the tree and stopped looking at Evan at all.


	2. Chapter 2

A week had passed since everything had happened, but not for Evan. He was still by the base of the oak tree, desperately trying to follow the EMT's instructions over the phone. Evan barely remember what he did, just that he had to turn Connor on his side and for a brief moment his fingers had grazed Connor's hoodie and it was soft and smelled vaguely of lavender detergent. It became his focus, a way of avoiding hyperventilation, because he couldn't be living in a nightmare if there was something soft and flowery present, right?

When the ambulance arrived, Evan somehow found himself riding along. The paramedics unzipped Connor's hoodie and cut the t-shirt below so they could press electrode pads to his chest to measure his vitals. At one point, when the heart monitor started shrieking in erratic beeps, Connor's arm flopped off the gurney and Evan had grabbed Connor's hand without thinking. He had said something dumb, something like, "Can't you go any faster" to the paramedics, which of course Evan knew accomplished nothing. But he had felt so helpless and had wanted, _needed_ , to do something.

After the paramedics rushed Connor inside, Evan was directed to the nurse's station. He told them Connor's name and Zoe's name and no, he didn't know Connor's parents' names. Then the nurse had gently led him to a waiting room, and he thought it would just be for, you know, waiting. But then a doctor came in and held up Evan's broken arm. The cast was a mess. It had deep gouges from the rough bark of the tree as Evan hurriedly made his way down and it had been soaked by Connor's bile, who had at one point, thrown up directly on Evan's cast. Evan had just stared at his arm, wondering how he hadn't noticed, and nodded absently as the doctor's strong recommendation to recast it immediately. Then he had to call his mom, who came over from the nursing home and did all the insurance paperwork for the mostly mute Evan.

It wasn't until the doctor brought out his saw and cut down on his cast directly where Connor had signed it that the shock wore off and Evan began to cry. The doctor told Mom what had happened, after getting a nod of approval from Evan in between sobs, and she had cradled him in her arms like he was a child. He didn't calm down until she started humming lullabies (which for Heidi Hansen was "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Carry On My Wayward Son") and the doctor was finally able to recast his arm. If Evan had really been thinking, he would have scratched the skin that had been itching for weeks. But he wouldn't think about the lost opportunity until the hospital called them that night (or that morning, technically) to inform them Connor's condition had stabilized. And then it was only for a brief moment before he passed out in bed with his mother laying outside the covers beside him.

Evan skipped school the next day and had what his mom dubbed "Netflix therapy" and actual therapy with Dr. Sherman. The next day at school, Jared talked about band camp at the lockers. Evan ate his lunch outside with Alana, who had tracked down Evan and asked if he were sick and if he needed any help with homework since she was an advanced honors student and no it was no problem and she would love to help one of her closest acquaintances. And Evan stuttered a lot when a teacher asked him to read a paragraph out of the textbook. Basically, it was a normal day. No one talked about Connor being absent. No word of his attempt was on social media or the local news. To everyone else around him, the world hadn't changed.

When Evan tried to think of it from Connor's point of view, he didn't know if he'd be grateful or sad by everyone's ignorance. But mostly, Evan didn't try to think because every time he did, his thoughts would inevitably spiral back to sunset at Ellison park, and suddenly it was like he was on his knees yelling at Connor to wake up while knowing he was watching someone literally die before his eyes.

No. Thinking was bad.

So Evan attended classes, listened to Jared make inappropriate jokes, and tried to pretend things were normal.

Then Zoe walked up to him after school one week later and bluntly said, "Connor is asking to see you."

Jared, who had been waiting for Evan to grab his books from his locker so they could drive home together, gave Evan a confused look. Not knowing what to do, Evan hiked up his backup and said, "Oh, um, what for?"

Her eyes, which had already looked so incredibly tired (as tired as Evan's probably), closed shut in exhaustion as she brought her hand to the bridge of her nose. "I don't know. Nobody knows why Connor does the things he does."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence. Jared didn't make it any better as he kept looking back and forth between him and Zoe, waiting for one of them to say what was going on. Finally, Zoe sighed in exasperation. "So are you coming or not?"

Evan looked around. "Sorry, you mean now?"

"If you're free, yeah."

"I… uh… sure?"

Zoe nodded toward the parking lot. "Come on then. I'll drive you."

They walked away and Jared shouted, "Yeah, no. That's fine. That wasn't weird at all! Pretend that I'm not even here!"

* * *

Instead of being driven to the Adenboro Medical Center, he was driven downtown to the Elm Saint Peter's Hospital—the city's only psychiatry hospital for youths. Evan had gone here once during his sophomore year and had been recommended to Dr. Sherman shortly after. It was nice enough, if a bit overly zealous for his tastes. Zoe parked the car and stared at the entrance. "He was transferred here on Wednesday. I guess it's mandatory after you… well…" She shrugged.

Evan hugged his backpack close to his chest. "How much longer does he have to stay here?"

"Technically, he could leave today. Mom and Dad are making him stay until he 'shapes up.'"

The awkward silence that followed them the entire car ride fell again. Cautiously, Evan unbuckled his safety belt and reached for the door handle. He stopped when he realized Zoe wasn't doing the same. "Aren't you coming with?"

"Nope," she said, popping the "p" dramatically.

"Oh… well, I don't know what to—"

"Just go to the front desk. Say that you're here to visit Connor Murphy and they'll let you in." She reached down in the space between the driver seat and door and suddenly she was in a hard recline. "I'll wait for you until you're done."

Going inside alone was incredibly awkward. The lady behind the check in counter smiled too much and asked questions adults always asked him like how old he was, what school he went to, what he wanted to be when he grew up. But the question that threw his heart into the early stages of a panic attack was probably the most relevant to him being there.

"So are you and Connor friends?"

Evan stammered, "Uh, I don't know. I guess you could say… yes? We don't have… an average kind of bond."

The woman (whose name was probably Debra since her name-tag said Debra, but after Evan called someone by their name-tag name once only to find out their actual name was not the name on the name-tag, Evan no longer made such assumptions) raised her eyebrows. "Is Connor Murphy more than just a friend?"

"What? No. I'm not gay. The only man I love is my dad." That was stupid. That was _so_ stupid. Evan wasn't even sure he could call what he felt for his Dad love. Feeling a strong need to correct himself, he waved his hand frantically above the registration counter. "Not that I have a problem with gay people! They're just people like you and me, right? Not that I'm assuming one sexuality or another about you. You could be straight, lesbian, ace, or something entirely new and it wouldn't matter to me, because after all, you are first and foremost a person, right?" Maybe-Debra stared at him clearly struggling to find an answer that could address his word vomit. So Evan filled the silence for her. "Anyway, the point is, gay is okay!" And to top off his mortification, Evan gave two thumbs up.

Maybe-Debra's opened her mouth. Closed it. And then said, "Why don't I go see if Connor is ready to see you." And she promptly left the desk with a bewildered smile.

This. This was the reason why Evan hated small talk with a passion that rivaled his hatred of loud trucks. He couldn't just answer things simply. No, he had to over-talk and dig himself into metaphorical holes until he wished they were literal holes he could bury himself in to permanently end his embarrassment. He rubbed his hot cheeks with his clammy hands, and tried to distract himself by reading the titles of brochures of the services the clinic offered.

"Mr. Hansen?" Maybe-Debra came back in, her smile just as bewildered as it had been before. "You can go see him now. Take the elevator to the third floor and his is the fifth room on the left. Number 313."

"Oh. Good. Thanks. And, uh, sorry. About before."

Maybe-Debra gave him two thumbs up before buzzing him through.

* * *

Evan found room 313 right away.

He didn't knock on the door until five minutes later when a nurse came by and asked him if he need help with anything. He was on the edge of a heart attack, but that was par for the course when it came to the life of Evan Hansen, so he said he was fine and that he was just gathering his thoughts before visiting. He must have been talking too loud though, because before he could knock Connor Murphy's voice shouted.

"I know you're out there, Hansen. Just come in already."

With one last deep breath, Evan grabbed the door knob and twisted it open.

The room was surprisingly… cheerful. The walls were tan that looked warm with the sun drifting through the windows. The quilt Connor sat criss-crossed upon was orange and muted pink, reminding Evan of a sunset. Even the simple wooden cross was a nice touch. It didn't really do anything for him personally being that he was Jewish. But this was a Christian hospital and he was just happy they picked out a cross that didn't include Jesus, because honestly, the idea of hanging up a man dying on a cross as decoration always seemed morbidly disturbing to Evan.

Connor looked… less than cheerful. He was sitting criss-crossed on the bed looking like he always did: gray, shaggy, and mad. Evan closed the door behind him and tentatively sat on the chair by the room's simple wooden desk. It felt presumptuous (part of Evan wanted to ask if it would be okay to sit down) but Connor's intense stare was making him nervous and he really wanted to sling his backpack off his shoulders so he could hold it in front of his chest as a personal shield and the only natural way to do that was by sitting down.

"Sorry, for sitting down. I hope that's okay," Evan said when Connor's stare was becoming a bit too much for him to handle.

"I want you to sing for me."

Evan sat still. Certain he misunderstood, he said, "Sorry. You want me to what?"

"Sing for me."

Nope. He head heard right. Evan's chest seemed to fill with dread. Or cement. The weight differential was slight at best. "I, uh, don't sing."

"Bullshit."

"I mean, yeah, I _do_ sing. I just don't sing in front of people. Like, ever."

"Sing for me right now or I'll tell the doctors you were going to commit suicide that night too."

He had thought he was shocked before. He had thought Connor had surprised him with his request for an impromptu performance. But it was nothing compared to what his last statement had prompted. It wasn't just cement. It was the whole cement truck. And a skyscraper. Topped with the weight of a moon.

"I... how... why do you think—"

"I was there when you climbed the tree. You were crying. You didn't even notice I was sitting there. It's pretty obvious you weren't climbing to look at the fucking sunset." He leaned forward. "So are you going to sing for me or what?"

Or what, apparently. With the what being hyperventilating.

Every stress and trauma from the past week—no, the past few months—pressed down on his chest. He wheezed, struggling to fill his lungs with oxygen. He pushed his backpack off his lap and cupped his hands over his mouth. Tears streamed down his face as he desperately tried to focus on his breathing, focus on counting. But he couldn't because he couldn't get Connor's words out of his head. God. What would his mom say? How would Jared react? How could he face people in school if they knew he had intentionally fallen in a forest and screwed up so badly that he had walked away with nothing but a broken arm and a pathetic story?

"Shit, Hansen? Hansen? I'm sorry." Suddenly, Connor was kneeling on the ground so Evan could see him from his hunched over position. He didn't touch Evan, but he did sway his hand calmingly up and down as though he were taming a wild animal. "Look, I won't tell anyone your secret, alright? I was just talking out of my ass. Just… breathe, okay?"

For reasons he could not say, Evan locked eyes with Connor as he got his breathing and tears under control. Evan hated to be vulnerable. He hated exposing the broken parts underneath his shell. But with Connor, it was different. He was mean and Evan would be lying if he said he wasn't a little scared of him, but Evan had seen Connor at his worst and not run away. Maybe, just maybe, he could trust Connor to at least do the same for him. Which was probably stupid since Connor was the reason why he was panicking to being with, but Evan never said he was a smart man.

"Xanax. Front pocket," he wheezed.

Connor nodded, dug the orange bottle out of his bag, and dropped one into Evan's hand who quickly dry swallowed it. Connor held the bottle in his hand for a long moment, before shaking his head and putting it back into Evan's backpack.

When the weight of chemically induced calm blissfully came and Evan could finally breathe again, he dropped his hands away from his mouth and wiped his tears and mucus away with the back of his hand. "Sorry. Sorry. I know its disgusting."

"Don't worry about it."

"No, really, it's gross. Maybe I should go to a restroom and wash up and then—"

"Hansen, I puked on you a week ago. You wiping snot on the back of your hand is nothing in comparison." He sat back down on the bed and once again pulled his legs into a criss-crossed position. "So… we established I won't tell anyone your secret."

"Right."

"Will you sing for me anyway?"

"I, um… I don't really sing in front of people. Sorry."

"Hansen, please."

Evan looked at Connor then. Really looked at him. The anger from when Evan walked in had disappeared. There was still tension in his brow—still something that caused Connor to look at Evan a bit too intensely for his own comfort. It almost looked like… desperation.

"Why is this so important to you?" Evan asked softly.

Connor drummed his fingers against the sunset quilt and Evan couldn't help noticing that he wasn't wearing nail polish. A small detail, really. But for whatever reason, it made Evan a bit sad to see its absence.

"It just is," Connor said, his voice almost matching the softness of Evan's.

Evan bit his lip. "Here? You want me to sing here?"

Connor nodded. "The same one you sung in the tree." At Evan's hesitation, Connor swung his legs off the bed and planted his feet on the floor. He leaned across his legs, parallel to Evan's stance. "It doesn't have to be much. And you can be quiet if you're worried about people overhearing. I just… I just need to hear it. Okay?"

Evan's mind went back a week ago. Back when he was in the ambulance and the heart monitor started going crazy and he just wished that there was something he could do. He didn't know why Connor wanted him to sing, but it was obviously important to him. And if this was something he could do, than he should.

"Okay… I'll do it. Just… don't look at me, okay?"

"Are you fucking serious?" Connor deadpanned. "I know it'll be you, Hansen."

"Just… please?"

With a big sigh, Connor twisted his body to face the wall instead of the desk. Evan took a deep breath. Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to sing _intentionally_ in front of a person that wasn't Mrs. Lindgren or Mom?

"Anytime, Hansen."

Evan licked his lips. And after three more deep breaths, he finally sang.

 _"On the outside always looking in. Will I ever be more than I've always been? Because I'm tap tap tapping on the glass. Waving through a window, oh."_

He stopped. There was silence. And then Connor whispered, "More."

Part of Evan wanted to say he didn't know what other lyrics he had come up with. That this was all he remembered and hopefully Connor would be happy with just that and leave it alone. Instead, he found himself singing the rest.

 _"I try to speak but nobody can hear so I wait around for answer to appear. Because I'm tap tap tapping on the glass. Waving through a window, oh-oh-oh. Can anybody see? Is anybody waving back at me?"_

Silence again. Then slowly, very slowly, Connor Murphy turned on his bedspread. His face was complicated to read. His eyes might have been shining with tears, but his eyebrows looked furrowed with concentration, and his teeth kept worrying his bottom lip, as though nervous. Evan was good at reading emotions. It's what made him so hypersensitive to everyone's passing irritation and bad moods. But he didn't know how to interpret this. He didn't even know if he could call it positive or negative.

"I wrote that song the day before school," Connor said, his voice low and shaky. "The first time I played it outside my room was in the band room that day."

Not certain how to reply, Evan said, "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"It's your song and I just gave it lyrics without your permission. I promise I wasn't going to do anything with it, it's just, well, it's a really pretty song and I kept thinking about it on my walk and, well, I guess I eventually just put words with it. Sorry."

"Hansen?"

"Yeah?"

"It's fucking beautiful." He shook his head. "Your words. Your voice. It's fucking perfect. Jesus. I was convinced I had hallucinated you until my parents told me yesterday that you were the one who had 'saved' my life." He gave Evan a sharp look. "By the way, don't expect me to say thank you for that."

"I, uh, okay?"

"But… fuck Hansen. Why the hell aren't you singing for people? Why do you keep something like that to yourself?"

Evan gave a shaky laugh. "You've met me, right? I can barely talk to people without having a panic attack. Singing is… it's a whole level of vulnerability that I'm just not ready to do."

"See? That's where you're wrong." Connor scooted forward as far as he could on the bed without falling off. "Music has the ability to connect guys like you and me to the rest of the world. Face it, if I weren't in a band with my sister, people would never even notice that I'm there."

"That's not true," Evan said automatically.

Connor scoffed. "You can't honestly believe that. How often have you stood in the middle of a crowd of people and still felt invisible?" When Evan didn't answer, Connor continued, "Hansen, your voice isn't a vulnerability. You could make people fucking cry with the way you sing. Talking is the hard part. Music is easy. Especially when you're good at it"

"You really think my voice is good?"

"I already said it's fucking beautiful."

"Why is this so important to you?" Evan said, softly repeating his question from earlier. "Why do you care if I sing to others or not?

Connor took a deep breath and finally turned his gaze away from Evan's. "Listen, Hansen. I don't give a shit about a lot of things in this world. But I care about music. I care about instruments. And you not using your voice would be like someone throwing a Fender Stratocaster into a flaming dumpster fire."

Evan still didn't feel like Connor was being entirely honest, but he didn't push the issue. Instead, he let Connor's frankly wildly inaccurate metaphor fade into the background until silence filled the air between them again.

"Didn't I sign your cast?" Connor said suddenly.

Evan looked at his cast, as though having to confirm it was still brand new and white as it had been two seconds ago. "I had to get it recasted."

"Why the hell did you get it recasted?"

"It, um, well…"

"Was it that disgusting to have my name on your arm?"

"No, no!" Evan said, frantically trying to cool down the quickly burning rage taking over Connor's voice.

"If you didn't want me to fucking sign it, you should have just fucking—"

"You puked on it!" Evan gasped out when Connor stared to rise off the bed. When he didn't say anything else, Evan quickly added, "When I, well, when I came to the hospital with you and got you check in, the doctor looked at my cast, which was, well, pretty rough with the tree branch gouges and puke, so they had to cut it off and give me a new one, but I promise I would never get a new cast because of your name. Connor is a great name. Not disgusting in any shape, way, or form at all"

"Okay, okay, calm the fuck down, Hansen."

Evan took a deep breath, trying to do just that. It sort of worked.

"So, ah." Connor cleared his throat, "You got a sharpie in that bag of yours?"

He did. And just like Monday last week, Connor signed his cast, but with a few key differences: he didn't yank Evan's arm and he didn't take up the entire side of his cast. While Evan was grateful for the former, he was almost sad at the latter.

"Thanks," Evan said. Then he gestured to the size of the signature, "Does this mean you'll only pretend to be my friend a little bit now?" When Connor looked at him blankly, Evan panicked. "It's just, well, you said we could pretend we were friends last time you signed it and you signed it really big then and this time you signed it really small, so I was joking that—"

"Hansen?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't want to pretend to be your friend."

A part of Evan shattered inside. Why did he do this to himself? He always got his hopes up. Always took any sign of attention as a sign of affection. He was normally so good as preparing for the worst, but first Jared had rid him of friend delusions and now Connor. He should have known better. He should have _known_ better. "Of course. Sorry. That was stupid of me to assume. Of course you don't want to be my friend. Just because you like my voice doesn't mean you—"

"Hansen?"

"What?"

"I want to be your friend. Not a pretend one."

Now Evan was confused. He tilted his head. "Why?"

Connor lips curled into that sideways smile. "You saved my life, right?"

"But I didn't think you were happy about that."

"I'm not," he shrugged. "But who knows? Maybe one day I will be. Plus," he grimaced a bit, "I already told my parents you were my friend. That's why you were able to come visit me."

"Oh."

"So thanks for not making me a liar."

"No… problem?"

A soft knock sounded at the door and a perky woman with floral scrubs popped her head in. "Visiting hours are done. Need a few more minutes to wrap up your conversation?"

"Nah, we're good." Connor said.

"You sure hun?"

Connor gave a smile so big and chirpy that Evan felt a bit repulsed by it's utter fakeness. "Super sure."

"Well say goodbye to your friend!"

"Okay," He stood up from the bed the same time as Evan and grabbed him tightly by the shoulders, "See you later, buddy!" And then gave him a hug so tight it made a few joints pop in Evan's back. Evan was so flabbergasted by the sudden attitude change and hug that he almost missed Connor's fierce whisper hidden from view of the nurse, "Sorry, but I need all the brownie points I can get with the nursing staff."

When they stepped away from each other Evan gave a nervous smile back and did his best to play the part of a friend. "You'll do great. Just…Remember to take deep breaths. And go on walks."

"Isn't that sweet?" the perky nurse said, holding a hand over her heart.

"Super sweet." Connor beamed a bit menacingly. "Thanks, _pal_."

"You're welcome," Evan croaked and dashed out the door.

* * *

 **JARED:** Holy shit

 **JARED:** HOLY SHIT

Evan rubbed his eyes, trying to read his phone screen. He had gone to sleep only an hour ago and his eyelids weren't wanting to open quite yet. It had been a long week since he went to visit Connor in the hospital and he had been plagued not only by nightmares of what had happened at Ellison State Park, but also by Connor's words. About him wanting to be friends. About Evan's voice being "fucking beautiful." It was like he was living a different life inside his head while his body performed the motions of his life before. And since singing was the very thing that was making him over-think, he couldn't even use that as a way to stop the spiral. Hence him being up until five am on a Saturday night (technically Sunday morning), and hence not being able to read Jared's text properly for a good minute.

 **EVAN:** Last time I messaged you at six in the morning, you told me you would punch me in the throat.

 **JARED:** Dude, I can't even right now. Just… look.

Blearily, Evan clicked on the link, which led to Zombie Unicorn's Facebook account. Before this morning, the last post had been a share from their twitter feed about their disbanding. Now, a new post had taken the top spot.

 **Zombie Unicorn** _2 hrs_ Zoe ( StarsInTheHems) and Connor Murphy are hosting tryouts for their new band (name TBD) next week. We need a lead vocalist, drummer, and second guitar player. Only Adenboro Public High School students may apply. Further details will be posted at school Monday morning.

A bit stunned but still mostly sleepy, Evan gave the post a "wow face" reaction and swiped back to his messenger.

 **JARED:** Did you read it?

 **EVAN:** I read it.

 **JARED:** Do you know what this means?!

 **JARED:** I'm going to be in a rock band with Zoe Fuckin' Murphy!

 **JARED:** Bad news, I'm also going to be in a rock band with Connor Murphy…

 **JARED:** BUT ALSO ZOE FUCKIN' MURPHY.

 **EVAN:** Pretty sure that isn't her middle name.

 **JARED:** Dude. So missing the point.

 **EVAN:** How do you know you'll get it? Don't you have to try out?

 **JARED:** Dude. I'm the insanely cool Jared Kleinman. Of course I'll get in.

 **JARED:** Plus, there's like four other percussionists at school that play the drum kit at my level and I'm pretty sure most of them are afraid of Connor.

 **JARED:** I mean, I'm afraid of Connor too. The kid is like two inches of hair away from becoming a school shooter.

 **JARED:** But being famous is more important than being dead.

 **EVAN:** Okay. Well. Good luck!

 **JARED:** Thanks, but I won't need it.

 **EVAN:** …because you're insanely cool?

 **JARED:** Could have done without the question mark, but yeah. That's exactly why.

 **JARED:** Now don't fucking message me. I got to practice.

Evan dropped his arm over his eyes and wondered if he could fall back asleep. He felt uneasy and weird. It was probably really arrogant to think, but could Connor possibly want him to try out? Even if Evan could accept the premise that he could sing in a manner that was at least semi-pleasing to the ear, that didn't mean he should be a singer for a band. Especially a rock band. When Evan thought of rock band singers, he thought of people like Neil Armstrung who sang in a "in your face" sort of way and could scream when the lyrics called for it. Evan was… well, an emotional singer. Not that he cried or anything (at least, not anymore) when he sang, but he sang however the lyrics made him feel. And Neil Armstrung never sang like that. He was always strong and hard and Evan didn't think he had it in him to do that. Not that thinking of this stuff even mattered because Evan would never sing in front of people.

Even if his voice was "fucking beautiful."

His phone buzzed again and with a sigh he wondered what Jared wanted now. But instead, it was a notification from his rarely used Facebook messenger app. He had only gotten the app last year when he was working with a group of kids in his class for a group project. One of the kids didn't have a cell-phone, so this was their work around for group communication. It would probably just be a message from one of his Mom's friends, who probably blindly invited him to a Norwex online sale like they often did (and how sad was it that the majority of Evan's Facebook friends were actually friends of his mother?).

But it wasn't an invitation for an online sale. And it wasn't one of Mom's friends. It was a message from Connor Murphy, and it said:

 _CM_ : Try out. Don't let that instrument go to waste.


	3. Chapter 3

Evan was starting to hate Mondays. Not for the normal reasons that most people hated Mondays. In fact, he liked going to school. Sure, it was terrifying and sometimes filled him with a crippling sense of loneliness. But it was also distracting, and Evan needed distraction more than ever now that singing had been taken away from him and he couldn't sleep because every time he closed his eyes he heard heart monitors, buzz saws cutting into his cast, or Connor saying, "fucking beautiful" over and over.

No, Evan didn't hate the start of a new school week. What he hated was the dramatic upheavals that now seemed inevitably paired with it. The first Monday was the trauma at Ellison State Park, giving him flashbacks and nightmares. The second Monday was his strange meet-up at Elm Saint Peter's, giving him anxiety and sleepless nights. Today's Monday was supposed to be normal. Today's Monday he was supposed to get back on track. All he had to fear was how to navigate being around Connor Murphy now that he was officially back in school. Was it nerve-wracking? Yes. A million times, yes. But something that would permanently haunt him or mark Evan in some lasting way? Hopefully not.

It started fine. The students had been buzzing in the hallways, talking eagerly about the pink and purple posters plastered around the school, announcing details for Zoe and Connor's band tryouts later that week. One had been taped directly on Evan's locker with the words "Think about it" scrawled in sharpie at the top. Jared had ripped it off Evan's locker to claim it as his own, certain someone had simply forgotten that Jared's locker was number 513 and Evan's locker was 512. Evan laughed awkwardly and agreed and didn't look at Connor. Standing across the senior hallway. Leaning against the lockers with his arms crossed. Staring pointedly at Evan.

Nope. Evan didn't look at him at all.

Jared wanted to eat lunch with him in the cafeteria for once, so Evan had sat inside. It seemed loud. Louder than usual. And it sounded like every table's topic of conversation centered around the Murphy Band Tryout. Zoe had gotten bombarded by people when she entered the lunchroom. A few people even dared to approach Connor, who had claimed a table for himself in the corner of the lunchroom. That had lasted for a handful of minutes before Connor had pushed his lunch tray and stormed out of the cafeteria's emergency exit, setting off a brief shriek of alarms that made Evan feel like someone had shocked his chest with an electric paddle. But the outburst did nothing to quell people's excitement and Jared was staring to worry that he'd have more competition at tryouts than he thought.

Still. All of this was in line with Evan's past high school experience and nothing he couldn't get over with proper breathing exercises and what his mom like to call a "can-do attitude," which mostly involved a lot of smiling and pep talks in mirrors.

No. Evan's life altering event didn't happen until after school. When he was starting to let down his defenses. When he was starting to think he would survive this first day with Connor back to school (who Evan really wanted to talk to and be friends with, but maybe not until after the tryouts.)

At the last bell of the day, Evan gathered up his books, slipped them into his backpack, and was the last to walk out of the classroom. During the first few steps in the hallway, he thought he was imagining the stares. One of the glorious perks of anxiety was, despite having crippling low self-esteem, your mind convinced your brain that everyone was staring at you all the time—like you were something worth staring at, which was ridiculous. But the more he walked, the more he started to believe the eyes pointed in his direction were real and not a figment of his over-active imagination. And it wasn't just stares. It was whispers, too.

 _It happened at Ellison State Park two weeks—_

 _They said he was in the ambulance—_

 _Connor Murphy has a drug add—_

 _Evan Hansen has his name on his—_

 _They said it was an over—_

 _Crack addict, screaming —_

 _Got so high, he tried jumping from the tree—_

Evan was practically running with his head down to his chest by the time he reached his locker. Jared was waiting for him and staring intently at his phone.

"Can we go?" Evan asked. "I think people are talking—"

"What the hell, Acorn Boy?" Jared swiveled his phone so close to Evan's face, it practically touched his nose. "Why didn't you tell me you Connor "Psycho" Murphy had a drug overdose?"

Evan grabbed the phone, ignoring Jared's indignation over respecting personal property. The phone's screen held an Instagram post from NiceTry2001—a username Evan didn't recognize; whose profile picture was Tweety bird flipping off the camera. But Evan barely noticed the offensive cartoon as he was too busy being horrified by the post Jared had shoved in his face.

It was Ellison State Park from that two weeks ago. The beams from the setting sun and the lights of the ambulance streaked the image, making if feel slightly distorted and surreal. A few branches framed the photo, as though the photographer had hidden behind a tree (an American Elm, his brain quickly filled in). A group of figures huddled at the ground, which Evan knew were the two paramedics kneeling over Connor's supine body. They were an indistinguishable mess. But the person standing on the outside of the group, dressed in a blue polo shirt and a stained cast was, without a doubt, Evan. If he zoomed in, he could even read Connor's name written brazenly on the cast.

"Swipe right. There's more."

The other photos captured the sequence of events leading from Connor laying on the ground to being transferred into the ambulance. Again, in most of these, Evan was the only recognizable person. He was starting to wonder how everyone was assuming Connor was the person in the ambulance, until he came to the end of the slideshow and found not a picture, but a video clip. The photographer (now videographer) had gotten daring at this point and had run up to the group as they loaded Connor into the ambulance. Connor had been intubated at that point, but even though his mouth and nose were covered, there was no mistaking his long hair and signature Grey hoodie and black, chipped fingernails. There was no sound since it was an Instagram video, but Evan could fill in the missing noise: the paramedic's asking him if he wanted to ride along, his dry sobs, the metallic creak of the gurney as it flattened down into the back of the ambulance, the thud of the door, the eventual scream of the siren. The video ended when the ambulance drove out of the picnic area's gravel parking lot and disappeared around a bend of trees (American Elm and Oak). When he tried to hand the phone back to Jared, his hands were shaking so bad he nearly dropped it.

Jared punched him in the shoulder, an act Evan often saw guys exchanging in the hallways, but it didn't feel friendly or buddy-like at all coming from Jared. "See, I knew you've been weird lately. I just thought it was because Zombie Unicorn were broken up and you couldn't jerk off anymore. You're a lefty, right?"

"I'm a right—that's not—"

"But to think it was something this big? Holy shit!

"Jared, you can't talk—"

"I'm just surprised it took this long for the story to come out." Then Jared started to smile wide as he added, "Not that I'm complaining about the timing."

"What? Why?"

Jared leaned in with a conspiratorial smile, "Notice how nobody seems excited about the tryouts anymore?"

Evan looked around. The people closest to him were still whispering and giving him curious stares. The posters that had decorated the walls and lockers in the morning were mostly gone. Evan assumed people were like Jared—getting a copy to bring home. But when he looked to the trash cans by the lockers, he saw them overflowing with purple and pink paper.

"Nobody wants to be dragged down with a druggie. Not even for a chance to play with Zoe Murphy. It's social suicide," Jared said.

"Nobody, except for you?" Evan tried to be mean and sarcastic as he was appalled at Jared's attitude, but it must not have come out right because Jared only grinned.

"Except for me." Jared swung his arm out in a wide arc. "Unlike these small-minded idiots, I can see the big picture. Sure. Connor Murphy is toxic now. But everybody loves a redemption story, and I'm in it for the long game."

"So glad my near-death experience can benefit you, Kleinman."

"Connor!" Jared said, whipping around abruptly to face the boy in question, who had someone snuck up behind them. Evan thought Jared made a gallant attempt at sounding excited, even if Jared's eyes were a bit too wide with fear for him to truly pull it off. "How you feeling, dude?"

"Much better." Connor's hands were in the pockets of his jeans and he looked for all the world nonchalant. "But I can start screaming about my crack withdrawals and slapping the invisible bugs on my body, if you prefer."

"Why would I want—"

"You're planning for the 'long game' right? Wouldn't do any good if, god fucking forbid, people weren't scared of me." He took a step closer to Jared. "And I wouldn't want to disappoint you."

Jared took a step back and barked out a laugh so awkward that Evan's stomach rolled in empathy. "Well, it was good talking to you, man. Feel better!"

Then Jared speed-walked away. Maybe Evan should have followed him. He was his ride home. But Connor was staring at him so intently that his feet refused to move. Besides, they were friends now. And this was the perfect time a friend should say something supportive because those photos and video must have been traumatizing right? Yes. It was time to put his needs aside and "friend up."

Evan reached out with both hands and hesitantly patted Connor's shoulders, "There, there."

Connor looked at his left shoulder. Then his right shoulder. Then Evan. "Jesus fucking Christ. Are you for real right now?"

"…Yes?"

A smile slipped on to Connor's lips. "You're a bit too pure for this world, aren't you, Hansen?" Before Evan could determine if that was a compliment or an insult, Connor stepped forward and knocked his shoulder against Evan's. "So… you're trying out right?"

Evan frowned. "How are you not upset?"

"You mean about the photos?" Connor shrugged. "It was only a matter of time before Larry's bribes failed. Besides, everyone assumes I'm some strung-out rocker junkie. Now the 'proof' is a little more in their face."

"But… you tried to…"

Connor was now so close that his height casted a shadow over Evan's face. Was he always this tall? (Which was a stupid thing to think. Connor had, of course, grown into his height since he was born and it's not like he magically sprouted a few inches since the last Evan he saw him and oh my god why was he obsessing over this line of thinking). Connor said, "Not according to social media. Not according to my parents." The smile on his face became large and Evan didn't like how the stretch distorted Connor's features. "I'm just a druggie who took one pill too many. I'm just a loser rockstar who wants attention. I'm just a fuck-up who could never measure up to his perfect sister." He finally stepped away and Evan let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

"That's-that's not true," Evan stumbled.

"Sweet of you to say, _friend._ But just because you saved me from choking on my puke, it doesn't mean you know me." He reached in his back pocket, producing a folded purple poster. "But if you really want to make me feel better, try out."

"Connor—"

"Spoiler alert: you'll get in. So that takes the stress off, right?"

Connor grabbed Evan's hand and forcefully placed the poster in his palm. Evan sighed. Connor didn't get it. For him, it was easy to play music. Music was an instrument, a tool. He talked about Evan's voice like it was a tool ( _a 'fucking beautiful' tool_ , his mind whispered). But Evan couldn't separate it like that. Singing wasn't just a part of him—it was the deepest, most vulnerable part of him. When he sang, he felt _everything,_ and he poured it all into his voice. Normally, it was a freeing release; a way for him to healthfully deal with his anxiety and loneliness. Sure, he knew proper techniques, like how to regulate his breath, posture, and diaphragm, thanks to Mrs. Lindgren next door. But that didn't mean he could become a proper singer.

"Why, um, why only the school?" Evan said, trying to divert that conversation because he felt that telling his only friend "no" this early in their relationship would result in him no longer having a friend. "Isn't that, uh, kind of limiting for you pool of candidates?"

"That was Larry and Cynthia's bright idea to keep me away from bad influences. And don't change the subject."

So much for that idea. Evan wiped his sweaty hands on his pants. "I don't want to say no—"

"Perfect! So don't say no. Thanks, friend!"

Then Connor bumped Evan's shoulder with his fist (in a decidedly friendlier manner than Jared had a few minutes earlier), turned around, and walked away before Evan could say another word.

* * *

Walking out of the school was brutal. No less than a dozen people came up to Evan, asking for details of what happened that night. Most wanted the gruesome specifics (" _Was there blood?" "How many times did he throw up?" "Is it true his heart stopped three times on the way to hospital?"),_ some wanted gossip fodder ( _"Did you see what kind of pills he took?" "Is Connor your drug dealer?" "Did he really call Neil Armstrung right before he OD'd and threatened to kill him?"),_ but only one person asked after Connor's well-being: Alana. And since it was Alana, she inevitably turned the question into a charity case, promising she would do whatever she could to help her acquaintances during this trying time. Then she got a weird gleam in her eyes and muttered something about her Grandma owing her a favor before speed-walking away, leaving Evan feeling ultimately confused.

(Not one person asked if Evan was okay. Which was fine, because Evan was not important. This was Connor's story, not his. He just happened to be a bystander to the whole event. Why would anyone ask if he was okay?)

Since Jared left without him, Evan walked home, which meant Evan didn't make it home in time to see his Mom before work. She must have been running late, judging by the open garage door. Evan went to the code box by the single stall door, punched in the year he was born, and numbly watched the door descend. When it completely closed, Evan kept standing there—kept staring at the place where the door met the cracked concrete. He couldn't say how long he was standing there. He snapped out of it when the Mrs. Lindgren's garage door opened, so he figured it must have been for a good twenty minutes because Mrs. Lindgren came home from the senior citizen center every Monday by 5:00.

He gave a brief wave toward the old, pink Cadillac and turned to go inside. But Mrs. Lindgren rolled down her window and shouted, "Evan! Help an old woman carry in her groceries."

"Su-Sure, Mrs. Lindgren," Evan said, knowing he could never say no to her. Luckily, Mrs. Lindgren knew the power she had over Evan when it came to asking for assistance and she didn't take advantage of it too often.

Evan didn't remember the first time he met Mrs. Lindgren, but he had heard the story enough times from his mom that it was as if the memory had been implanted. Mom had been trying to direct the movers and Evan had been crying on the driveway because a truck had come to take Daddy away and then a second truck had come to take Mommy and Evan away from their home so no, Evan didn't want to play with his toy trucks while the movers touched all their stuff. His mom was "literally five seconds away from killing someone" when Mrs. Lindgren opened her front door and yelled, "Why don't you bring that boy over here and the two of us can watch some Veggie Tales and eat cookies."

"Oh, that's very kind of you," his Mom had said, but "But we're Jewish."

"Then we'll watch Old Testament episodes and keep it kosher. That work for you?"

Not a lot had changed over the ten years since their first meeting. Mrs. Lindgren still looked very much like she did back then: tiny, hunched, and louder than any other person in Evan's life, only now she had white hair instead of gray and she needed a walker to get around. She was still an active "busybody" (her word, not Evan's) and still saw herself as a young bird who volunteered at the manor, senior citizen center, and church to "help the old people." If Evan had to help her with things like groceries, reading the small print on bills, and teaching her how to "Facetweeet" for the third time that month, Evan was too kind, and Mrs. Lindgren was too stubborn to label it as "elderly assistance."

"Evan, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"Hmm?" Evan turned around, stopping mid-motion from putting away Mrs. Lindgren's groceries in her kitchen. Evan liked Mrs. Lindgren's kitchen. Not only did it smell perpetually of cookies, but it had things like yellow wallpaper, shelled curtains, and Elvis collector plates, which always seemed like the essentials of a "homey" kitchen in Evan's mind (even if she also had a lot of crosses with dead Jesus). "What makes you think something is wrong? Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine."

"Three reasons." She held up her hand with three fingers, pulling each gnarled digit down as she listed them off. "One, I haven't heard you sing in days. Two, you're rambling. And three, you put my eggs and milk in the pantry instead of the fridge." She pushed her walker to the kitchen table and sat down heavily in one of her mismatched white, wooden chairs. "So why don't you grab that milk and the lemon cookies next to it and tell me all about it."

"I, I wouldn't want to—"

"Oh, hush and tell me what's wrong before I kick your little butt."

The subtle push sent Evan over the emotional edge. He didn't actually cry—he loved Mrs. Lindgren, but he didn't like anyone to see him cry (but what good was that anymore now that everyone had seen him dry sobbing in that Instagram post)—but he came close. He kept forgetting to breathe. His hands trembled. His teeth chattered. But somehow, he got it all out: the night at Ellison State Park, his visit to Connor, the video leak, the tryouts. Evan didn't tell her the unnecessary bits, like why he had gone to Ellison State Park to begin with or Connor's threat to divulge his secret, but he gave her the most important parts of the picture. All the while Evan talked, Mrs. Lindgren did what Mrs. Lindgren did best. She patted his hand, hummed to show she was listening, and pushed the cookies closer to him when his rambles got too incoherent, giving him time to chew, swallow, and collect his thoughts.

She also didn't talk right away after he finished. He liked that about her. His Mom had the habit of trying to offer a solution and Dr. Sherman was brutal with the follow-up questions. Mrs. Lindgren gave him time to breathe (or in today's case, drink milk and eat cookies). After a few minutes of silent contemplation (or prayer—Evan could never tell the difference between the two when it came to her) she finally spoke. "Sounds like you and Connor Murphy really need each other."

Out of everything she could have said, he didn't expect that. His shoulders slumped. "So you want me to try out?"

"Evan, I've been trying to get you to share your gift for years. Of course I want you to try out. But you can still be what Connor needs even if you decide not to. And that is to be his friend."

"He only wants to be my friend because of my voice," Evan said, his voice low and resigned. "If I don't do this, he'll want nothing to do with me."

"Oh, psh. You're Evan Hansen, the sweetest boy I know. Who wouldn't want to be friends with you?"

Evan just looked down at his cookies. How could he tell Mrs. Lindgren that being sweet meant nothing when it came to high school. Not when sweet meant quiet, shy, and awkward, awkward, _awkward_. But Mrs. Lindgren tended to get offended if Evan contradicted her "old woman wisdom." So he just shrugged and ate another cookie.

Mrs. Lindgren took a deep breath and heaved herself out of her chair. Evan winced in sympathy as he heard her knees and back joints pop painfully. She grabbed hold of her walker and nodded to the living room. "Alright, let's go."

"…What are we doing?"

"Preparing your audition song."

"But I… I don't know—"

She held up her hand. "You don't have to decide right now. But this way, you'll be prepared either way." Then she reached across the table to pat his cheek. "So get that cute butt off my chair and let's sing some arpeggios."

* * *

It had taken a long time for Evan and Mrs. Lindgren to choose a song for Evan. Evan didn't want to do anything that was a hymn or musical number, and Mrs. Lindgren refused to help him sing any song with foul language. In the end, they agreed on "Asleep" by the Smiths. Evan wanted the song because he liked the lyrics and he knew The Smiths were one of Zombie Unicorn's influences, and Mrs. Lindgren agreed because she liked how the lead singer looked like Buddy Holly, but with straighter hair. Of course, Mrs. Lindgren didn't let him sing the song the way The Smiths had originally performed it, insisting he had to "spice it up" to show his vocal range and depth of emotion. She accompanied him on guitar as best she could, because Zoe and Connor would play with him during his audition, but her arthritis eventually forced her to switch to the piano, which was gentler on her knuckles.

By the end of the night, Evan felt mostly prepared with his song (even though he would continuously practice for hours over the next few nights), but no less anxious. The feeling didn't go away the next few days of school. If anything, it only got worse. Whoever NiceTry2001 was, it seemed like his personal mission in life was to make Connor Murphy look like the most degenerative teenager in Adenboro, Wisconsin. There weren't any more pictures or videos from Ellison State Park, but there were other images from the last few years of Connor Murphy's life. There was a picture of Connor getting into a fistfight in an alley lit by neon bar signs. Another of him smoking pot with a group of people far older than him. Another of him yelling and flipping off whoever was taking the photo. And while Evan felt sicker and sicker on Connor's behalf with each new post, Connor walked around the school as though things were completely normal. He didn't talk to Evan much—Evan saw him with Zoe most of the time, usually arguing or talking about the upcoming tryouts. But every moment his path crossed Evan's, Connor gave his sideways smile and pointed at him, as if to say, "Thanks for having my back, buddy."

Which was no pressure at all.

Friday, the morning of the tryouts, Evan walked over to Jared's house to help him load his drum kit into his parent's van. A drum set was promised to be at the auditorium for people to use, but Jared wanted to show off with his elaborate kit. Evan didn't really think all six cymbals were necessary, but he understood the double drum pedal setup. It may make Evan's heart feel arrhythmic when the bass drum pounded as fast as a hummingbird's wing, but Jared's ability to keep an incredibly fast and complicated beat was his strong point and he'd be an "idiot" (his word, not Evan's) if he didn't show it off.

"So, you're coming to auditions, right?" Jared asked as he slammed the back of the van shut.

Evan froze. Did Jared somehow know that Connor had asked him to sing? Did NiceTry2001 post a video of Evan singing? Would everyone in school be whispering about his voice when they thought he was out of hearing range?

"You should come," Jared continued, not noticing Evan's stilled posture. "Make sure to clap extra loud for me to make me look even more awesome. Then you can help me load the kit in the van after, okay?"

Right. Jared needed help loading, so he would need help unloading as well, obviously. Jared didn't know about Connor's request. Jared wasn't pressuring Evan into auditioning. "Oh, uh, sure. I don't have anything better to do."

"I know you don't. Now hurry up, we're gonna be late."

* * *

There was a grand total of seven people at auditions. Two of them were the Murphy siblings. One was Jared. One was Evan. One was Alana. One was a student Evan didn't recognize. And the last was the teacher, supervising the students' use of the auditorium. Zoe looked dejected. Connor, like all week, seemed not bothered. But he did smile wide when he saw Evan in the small crowd of participants. (Was that too presumptuous to think? That Connor's smile was for him?)

They waited for ten minutes after the poster's stated time for tryouts before Zoe sighed and got up on the stage and everyone else sat down in the auditorium's fold out padded seats. Evan couldn't help but feel bad for her. She was an incredible performer and (as far as he could tell) an incredible person. She didn't deserve to be smeared by NiceTry2001's campaign. Not that Connor did, of course, but Zoe had nothing to do with those photos, so it just seemed incredibly unfair that she would suffer at all. To her credit, she gave them all a smile once she got on stage and Evan felt his lips automatically answer back with a smile of his own. But he hid it behind his hand because his mouth was too dry, and his lip stuck to his front teeth funny, making it look like he just got injected with Novocain.

"Thank you for coming out, everyone. Connor and I are really excited to start a new band with our classmates. I'm just gonna get things started right away so Mrs. Jacobs doesn't have to stick around here forever." The teacher supervisor waved a hand, but Evan could see she appreciated Zoe's thoughtfulness. "So, raise your hand if you're a drummer."

Jared shot his hand into the air. He was the only one.

Zoe stole a look over to Mrs. Jacobs who gave a small nod and Evan realized Mrs. Jacobs' second purpose. As the school's band teacher, she would know who would have the skills necessary to be a member of a rock band. Zoe gave a small shrug. "Jared, right?"

"The insanely cool Jared Kleinman, yes," Jared said, standing up. "I got my drum kit set up behind the curtains. Just give me two seconds and—"

"No, need. You're in," Zoe said. If her smile was forced, even Evan, who zeroed in on any possible negative emotion present, couldn't see it.

"All right!" Jared smiled and Evan could instantly see the tension. He knew how much Jared had practiced and prepared. It must be a bummer not being able to show off. But Jared just threw his hands behind his neck when he sat back down, as though basking in his impending rockstar glory.

"Okay. Now who plays guitar?"

Alana and the other kid (a freshman named Hector Loring) were both there for the role of guitarist and Evan finally got to see some tryouts. Hector came in with his electric guitar, and after three minutes of playing, Evan honestly couldn't tell if he were good or bad. It was loud. And there was a lot of different notes. He just couldn't tell if the music was standard for heavy metal or if Hector was just a bad player. Judging by Connor's shaking head (Evan was sitting behind him and couldn't see his facial expression), it was probably the latter.

Alana came on stage with an acoustic guitar. Her grandmother's guitar, to be specific, which her grandmother had brought over from Mexico when she immigrated to the United States. "She sold all her possessions, except this guitar, so it is one of my family's most dearest and prized possession," Alana said, with the same tone she used when lecturing Evan on his studying habits. When she played, Evan could at least tell she was playing a song, even if it was a simple sort of song that seemed closer to a beginner level than that of an experienced player. But since Connor only shrugged at whatever Zoe whispered, Evan assumed it would be Alana who'd be offered the spot. But instead of announcing their pick, Zoe only got up and said, "Okay, now singers." She squinted past the lights. "Evan?" She looked to Mrs. Jacob's, who obviously shrugged, knowing nothing about Evan's musical talent (and didn't that sound conceited to call it talent?).

Jared started laughing. "No, he's not auditioning. He's here as my most loyal fan."

"Is that right, Evan?" Zoe asked.

His backpack sitting by his toes on the auditorium floor felt hot, as if signaling to him that his sheet music was inside, just waiting to be used.

"I, uh, well…" Evan's tongue felt three sizes too big and he was suddenly scared that he was having an allergic reaction to profound fear.

"Come on, Hansen," Connor said, turning around his seat. "Show us what you got."

With a strength Evan didn't know he had, he leaned over knees, unzipped his bag, and withdrew the sheet music from inside. He refused to look at Jared, who was sitting right next to him, even thought he could feel Jared's shocked gaze piercing his back. He stood up, walked to Connor, and handed him the sheet music.

"I, uh… here."

Connor looked down, read the title, and smiled so big that Evan felt the dread lift from the crushing weight of the Pacific Ocean to the crushing weight of the Atlantic Ocean. Connor stood up and got up on the stage with Zoe, handing her the extra copy of the sheet music. After she read the title, she gave Evan a smile so sweet that it made Evan's heart lift from the depth of Valles Marineris to the depth of the Mariana Trench (and how big of a nerd was he to know the deepest valleys of Mars and Earth?). "Good choice, Evan. Hold on, and we'll get everything set up for you."

Evan stood awkwardly on the stage, still very pointedly not looking at Jared as Zoe set up Evan's microphone and Connor hooked up his and Zoe's instruments to amps. He was still scared, more scared then he had been last year when he had tried to give an oral presentation in English and ended up saying, "Um" on repeat until the teacher took pity and said he could sit down. Still, he thought he could do it.

Then Zoe turned on the microphone, tapped it, and the boom echoed in the entire auditorium and it was like a black hole formed in his chest.

Connor and Zoe started playing. His cue was coming. He needed to take his breath. He needed to adjust his posture. He needed to control his diaphragm. He needed to breathe. He needed to breathe. He needed to _breathe_.

"Evan?" Zoe said and oh my god he had missed his cue and why did he ever think this was possible? He should have just stayed in the crowd, said he was there as Jared's fan, and let this whole fantasy of being in band with Zoe and having Connor as a friend just die away because Evan was worthless, and he just needed to accept that.

"I—I'm sorry." His apology boomed to the rafters, making Evan feeling smaller and more pathetic than before. He turned to Connor, whose eyes had gone wide, whose head was beginning to shake furiously. "Sorry," he gasped once more. And then he ran off the stage and didn't look back.

Not even when Connor Murphy screamed his name.


	4. Chapter 4

_Dear Evan Hansen,_

 _Today is going to be a good day and here_ _'s why: yesterday will never happen again. Getting on stage was a mistake. Thinking you could sing in front of people was a mistake. You knew your limits, and now you know the consequences of trying to stretch past them. Not only did you embarrass yourself, you lost the only friend you have. Dr. Sherman always talks about life teaching us lessons, some harder than others. This lesson is just… harder than most. You'll get through this._

 _Somehow._

 _Sincerely, your best and only friend,_

 _Me_

Evan sat on the couch in his living room, staring blankly at his laptop. It was Saturday afternoon. His Mom woke him up before she left for her six am shift to say goodbye, not that Evan had been asleep. He'd spent the entire night replaying everything all at once. Sitting in the ambulance holding Connor's hand as the microphone from the audition boomed. The air rushing by his ears as he fell from the tree while Connor Murphy screamed his name from the stage. His cast getting cut in half as Connor whispered "more" from his bed at Elm Saint Peter's. Everything was _such_ a mess. Why, oh _why,_ had he ever sung for Connor Murphy?

"Honey, are you doing okay?"

He loved his mom. But she always asked these questions with concerned eyes when she was running out the door. Shouldn't she know Evan better by know? Shouldn't she know that he would never say anything to keep her from work or school? Evan spent every second of his life feeling like a waste of space, an inconvenience. His Mom was one of the few people who (probably) liked him—the last thing he wanted to do was say or do anything to make her resent him. So when she asked if he was doing okay when he knew it was a twenty minute drive to work at it was already 5:37, Evan said, "I'm fine." And even though he hadn't said it with a "can-do attitude," his Mom gratefully accepted his answer and rushed out the door.

The morning and afternoon crept by in the manner it always did. Evan turned on the TV (not to watch, but to make it seem like other people were living there, filling the space), he intentionally avoided his Mom's twenty-dollar bill on the table, and he grazed the pantry and refrigerator, filling his stomach with dry cereal, some questionable baby carrots, and turkey jerky. He finished his homework, did a few chores, and when he got desperate, he wrote Dr. Sherman's letter. But now, he had nothing. How was he going to fill the rest of his weekend? How was he going to drown out everything in his head?

Desperate, he pulled out his cell phone to text Jared, only to find four text notifications waiting for him. They'd been sent about an hour ago, which was about the time Evan had done the dishes. He quickly opened the messenger app and found they were all from Jared.

 **JARED:** Let it be known that I, Jared Kleinman, am a big enough person to admit when I've been a dick.

 **JARED:** And I, sir, have been a dick.

 **JARED:** If Connor Murphy murders you, know that I will write the most beautiful eulogy at your funeral.

 **JARED:** God speed, Mr. Hansen. God speed.

Feeling a sense of dread, Evan quickly typed a reply that Jared thankfully immediately answered.

 **EVAN:** What did you do?

 **JARED:** You know how I've recently become an awesome rockstar who happens to be in a band with the Murphys?

 **JARED:** I maaaaay have given your address to the more murdery of the two Murphys.

 **EVAN:** Why would you do that?!

 **EVAN:** He probably hates me after what happened yesterday.

 **JARED:** Don't get your penis in a twist. You saved his life, remember? He'll probably just yell at you, break some of your property, and then go get high.

 **JARED:** Just do me a favor and make sure he doesn't leave too angry. Band mates can't die of drug overdoses until the first platinum album, kapesh?

 **EVAN:** You shouldn't joke about stuff like that.

There was a knock at the door and Evan dropped his phone. A lazy two knocks. Definitely not Mrs. Lindgren's perky four raps, or the mailman's firm three. He took a deep breath. Found it didn't help. And walked to the door.

"Who's there?" His throat was too thick, trapping his words. So Evan coughed, said it again, and winced at how panicked he sounded.

"It's Connor. Open up."

Evan snatched his phone off the floor and desperately texted.

 **EVAN:** He's here. What do I do?

 **JARED:** Answer the door like a normal fucking human?

 **EVAN:** Not helping.

 **JARED:** Then by all means, keep texting me and keep Connor "Gets-In-Bar-Fights" Murphy waiting on your doorstep.

Connor knocked again. "Evan. Come on. I want to talk to you."

"Just a minute," Evan called. He looked at his clothes. He was wearing jeans with worn hems from his volunteer park ranger days. He didn't even have a polo on, just a plain blue t-shirt with some bleach stains on the back. And his hair. God. What did his hair look like?

The knocking became more forceful. "Evan!"

Finally deciding it was worse to keep Connor waiting, he unlocked and opened the door.

"He-Hey, Connor."

Connor walked in, slightly pushing Evan with his shoulder as he stepped by. It wasn't gentle. But at least it wasn't a punch in the face like Evan initially prepared for.

Without asking for permission, Connor pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and patted the back of the seat harshly. "Sit."

Evan didn't hesitate. He sat in the chair. Connor grabbed the other chair, pulled it directly in front of Evan, and then sat down with the back of the chair facing his chest. Then he stared. No, not stared. _Examined_. His bloodshot eyes didn't leave Evan's, leaving Evan no choice but to notice that they were brownish-green like Zoe's—Zoe, who showed her eyes, smiles, and face to the camera, and Connor, who always hid behind a curtain of hair. With the proximity, Evan also couldn't help noticing the musky, skunky smell of pot. And weren't those the clothes Connor wore yesterday? It's hard to tell since his outfits were so similar, but he vaguely recalled Connor's t-shirt under his hoodie being the same New York skyline as the day before.

"Have—have you gone to sleep?" Evan asked hesitantly.

"Nope." Connor popped the "p," just like Zoe had done the day she drove Evan to Elm Saint Peter's. He still stared, unblinking.

"Can I get you something to drink?"

Connor shook his head once and kept silent. Evan scratched his legs through his jeans than stopped after he realized what he was doing. Then he bit his nails before he stopped himself again. He really needed to learn how to sit down and—how had Jared termed it?—act like "a normal fucking human."

Finally, Connor folded his arms on the back of the chair and leaned his cheek against the crook of his elbow. "You look like shit, Hansen."

Connor speaking gave Evan permission to respond. He found himself blurting out the first thing he was thinking, so relieved he was to break the silence. "You don't look much better." His eyes went wide, and he only resisted slapping his hands over his mouth because Jared informed him that it made him look like a toddler about to get in trouble.

Connor, on the other hand, relaxed further into his arm and even laughed a bit. "Fair."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know why I said that."

"You said it because it's true. I look like shit. So do you."

"You don't look like—"

"So you really don't sing in front of people?" Connor rolled his chin across his knuckles and when he looked up at Evan his eyes looked droopy and sad.

"I really don't," Evan said softly.

"Not even for your best friend?" Evan blinked, a bit confused, wondering if he needed to clarify that Jared was a family friend. Then Connor dramatically pouted his lip and Evan realized Connor was talking about himself.

"You still want to be my friend?" Evan said, scarcely believing it.

Connor pouted more. "Clearly you don't want to be mine."

And then it finally clicked. "You're high."

Connor's pout was replaced by a bright smile. "I am high. Thank you for noticing. "

Evan looked behind him, trying to peer through the windows in the kitchen to the driveway. "Did you drive here?"

"Nope."

"Oh. Good."

"I drove to Ellison and then I walked here."

Evan's heart hammered at the mention of the park. He tried to act casual. "That's like a four mile walk."

"Right? I'm like a fucking... what's an animal that walks a lot? A camel?"

Evan leaned forward a bit, trying to distract Connor. "Why were you at Ellison Park?"

"Camels are boring, though. How about a llama? Or are you more of an alpaca man, Hansen?"

He couldn't keep the desperation out of his voice. "Why were you at Ellison State Park, Connor?"

Connor pulled back from his chair and smirked. "You didn't drive me to suicide, if that's what you're worried about, Hansen."

Evan slumped and dropped his face into his hands. Yes, Evan's blood sugar was a bit shot these days and he hadn't a decent night's sleep since before school started but even was surprised by the sudden and violent dry sob that escaped his throat. He turned his hands into fists and held them to his forehead, blocking his face, trying his best to control himself.

"Hansen?"

Evan couldn't speak for a full minute. He knew because he counted each agonizing second until the muscles in his face could relax enough to form words. When he was finally convinced that he was (mostly) in control, he spoke, even though he was not brave enough to drop his hands to face Connor.

"I don't know how you deal with it," Evan admitted.

"With what? My overdose?"

Evan nearly lost control again. The nonchalance in Connor's voice nearly undid him. "I can't stop thinking about it." He hadn't told his mom that. He hadn't even told Dr. Sherman. "You were dying. You were dying right before my eyes. And I can't. Stop. Thinking about it."

"It's not like it would have been your fault if I did." And even though Evan wasn't looking, he could hear Connor's shrug.

"That's not the point. I... you asked me to be your friend. And then I made you upset. And then I was upset and went to Ellison Park because I didn't know what else to do so I climbed a tree and I sang and then you were there and dying and I couldn't... I couldn't..."

Evan's shuddering breaths filled the kitchen. His chest hurt so much from the strain of keeping the worst of his feelings in. Connor had already seen so many bad parts of him; he couldn't stand the idea of Connor seeing just how deep his weakness ran.

"Hansen..." There was a heavy sigh and Evan was grateful that the airy attitude had finally left Connor's voice. "Look, a lot of things drove me to that park. You were a _molecule_ in the huge mass of shit that made me take those pills. So forget about it. It doesn't matter."

"It matters." Then Evan did something impossibly brave. He lowered his hands, faced Connor, and said, " _You_ matter."

Evan had seen Connor in a lot of bad moments over the past few weeks. There was the park. There was the hospital. There was the day at school when everyone found out about the park. Never once did Evan seen Connor look vulnerable. Until now.

He had leaned away from Evan, his face looking almost confused and childlike. He wondered if this was the face he would have saw if Evan had sung to Connor's face that day in the hospital. Because when he said, "A little over the top there, don't you think, Hansen?" his voice was as soft and shaky as his singular plea for Evan to keep singing.

Evan shook his head once, fiercely. And then Evan did his second brave thing that day. He gave his best smile (which, in the state he was in, probably looked more like a grimace) and said, "What are friends for?"

Connor abruptly got up from the chair. He paced a bit, looking more confused than ever. At least he wasn't mad. The one good thing about Connor's temper is that Evan never had to second guess when he did something upsetting. Evan kept still, waiting for Connor's cue on what to do next.

He deflated when Connor walked to the door and swung it open. "I really need to walk off this high."

"Oh. Okay." When Connor kept standing there, Evan got up from his chair slowly. "Are you going to be alright?"

"Yeah."

He still didn't move. Connor just stood there, holding the door, waiting. Evan didn't get it until Connor said, "So are you coming with me or what?"

* * *

The walk was surprisingly nice. They talked about random things that started with Connor asking his opinion on lawn gnomes (Evan: against, due to horror movies; Connor: for, due to horror movies), which somehow segued into an argument over aliens (Evan: non-believer, because he didn't have room in his brain to be anxious over extraterrestrials as well as everything else on Earth; Connor: believer, because it would suck if humans were the most advanced being in the entire universe). It was the type of conversation Evan always imagined friends would have. But even though it was nice, even though the conversation flowed smoothly, it didn't feel quite real. By unspoken agreement, they hadn't talked about any tense topic. But leaving it unspoken didn't wipe away their nerves.

The closer they got to the park, the faster the two of them talked, as though anxious to not let one moment of silence fall between them. When they passed the entrance gates, Evan was talking so fast it was leaving him almost breathless.

"—now, the oak trees here, at least the fully mature ones, are about 150 years old, give or take a few decades, but the Pechanga Great Oak Tree is over _2,000 years old_! Crazy, right? It's probably the oldest oak tree in the entire world, and it's right here in the United States. Can you imagine being able to visit something like that?"

"Couldn't possibly imagine," Connor said distractedly as he dug into the pocket of his jeans.

"And you think these trees are tall, at about 60 feet of height? Well, the English Oak in the UK gets as tall as—"

"As adorable as your tree enthusiasm is Hansen, I'm gonna have to cut you off." Connor interrupted.

Evan visibly deflated. "…Because I'm a giant nerd?" How long had he been talking about trees? He had a habit of losing tack of time when it came to something he loved. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. Oh, jeez. It had been two hours since him and Connor left his house and he had probably talked about trees for at least a quarter of that time.

Connor's smirked and lifted a set of keys out of his pocket. "Because we're here."

When Connor clicked the unlock button, a dark green Honda Civic beeped in the gravel parking lot by the ranger station. Normally, Evan wouldn't be able to tell one car's make and model from the other, but he knew this car. It had been in the ranger station parking lot quite often throughout the summer. Evan had never seen its attached driver, but he had walked by it enough times to memorize the black and white bumper sticker that stated _Republicans for Voldermort_ (which Evan guessed Connor got to anger his father, "Larry, the uber conserva-freak") and the smiley face scratched into the driver side door (which Evan always thought looked a little sad with its sloped eyebrows, despite its dramatic u-shaped mouth).

Connor opened the driver door and jerked his head to indicate Evan should open the passenger door. Evan's nose instantly wrinkled as he settled into the dark gray bucket seat, the smell of pot overwhelming his senses. As Connor plugged his phone into the car charger and placed it in the holding device attached to the center of the windshield, Evan nervously folded his hands on his lap and tried to tell himself the baggie of green stuff in the center cup holder was oregano and not pot, while also trying not to think how marijuana was illegal in the state of Wisconsin. By the time Evan was trying to imagine how he would survive in a federal penitentiary after a park ranger reported them to the FBI, Connor was reaching into the backseat, which was filled with clothes, a blanket, pillows, and empty fast food bags. He dug around a bit, pressing against Evan as he did. Evan fidgeted. He never knew what to do with his hands, or if he should move, or touch back when someone casually touched him, so he ended up tracing the slightly fogged passenger window to distract himself.

When Connor emerged, he was holding a ukulele. He tuned a few strings, took a slurp from a straw poking out of a fast food cup in the other cupholder next to the maybe-oregano, fiddled with his phone, and then turned to Evan.

"You know what I'm gonna ask you to do, right?"

Evan stopped his window tracing (which had turned into him playing a game of tic-tac-toe against himself and somehow losing) and sighed. "You want me to sing?"

Connor strummed the ukulele and grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."

"Connor, I can't… I mean, I tried—"

Connor held up his hands. "You're not on a stage. You don't have to try to impress my sister. Just sing to…" Connor pauses to look out the windshield and points. "See that tree with the weird seeds with hair?"

"The Bigtooth Aspen?" Evan tried to stall and gave a nervous laugh. "Did you know it used to be classified as a weed and now it's one of the most sought-after hardwood trees?"

"Neat." Connor slapped the butt of his ukulele. "Sing your audition song to Weed Tree."

"But, y-you don't have the sheet music."

Connor shrugged. "Don't need it. You ready?"

"Absolutely not."

"Too fucking bad."

Then Connor started to play.

The ukulele really put a different spin on the song than the piano and guitar ever had. It was already an incredibly lonely song, but the soft, high strings gave it a vulnerability that didn't exist with the lower strums of the guitar or the bass notes of a piano. Evan closed his eyes not only to gather his courage, but to sink into the music. Connor played the intro several times. Evan swayed his head, tapping his fingers against each other. Eventually he realized it wasn't just the instrument that made the song different, it was the way Connor played it. He emphasized things differently. He elongated certain sections that Mrs. Lindgren had played in a consistent tempo. It was different, melancholy, and… well.

Beautiful.

"Anytime, Hansen," Connor prompted.

Evan nodded a bit. When he was ready, he held up four fingers, descending them one by one, until he was ready to sing. He opened his eyes as he sang his first note, serenading the Weed Tree. Evan didn't sing the way he prepared it, not exactly anyway. He started softer, and used bits of falsetto in the beginning, which wasn't something he had practiced. But it felt right, like he was making something entirely new with Connor. Where Mrs. Lindgren's accompaniment felt like a backing track, Connor's music felt alive and present and desperate for a partner. When Evan started to build the intensity of the lyrics in a way the Smiths hadn't, Connor matched him, creating complicated melodies to fit Evan's depth and volume.

It was intense. He had always felt satisfied with his emotional release at home when he sung by himself, but this was on an entirely different level. And at one point, it got to be so much that he felt tears gather at the corner of his eyes.

 _"Sing me to sleep. Sing me to sleep. I don't want to wake up on my own anymore."_

He took a shuddering breath and for the first time looked at Connor, who had paused the ukulele at the same time. His look was unreadable, but full of something. Evan, for a moment, was transferred back to Elm Saint Pete's and Connor's soft whisper for more. Evan bit his lip, waited one more moment to swallow away the tears, and then lifted his head indicating he was ready. When he started to sing, Connor was there, ready to support him.

 _"Don't feel bad for me. I want you to know, deep in the cell of my heart, I really want to go."_

Evan serenaded to the Weed Tree at the song's ending farewell. His voice rose in pitch and intensity with every repetition, until it came to the final six lyrics of the song—the word "bye" sung over and over again. Those he sang softly, as though he were actually falling asleep and not wanting to disturb the quiet of the night. When he stopped, Connor strummed a few lingering chords before letting the final notes fade into the space of the car.

Neither one spoke for a long time. Eventually Connor coughed, fiddled with his phone, and then sighed.

"Goddamn, Hansen."

Evan turned, startled to hear Connor's voice crack. His head was slumped against his headrest, looking wrecked. He wasn't crying, not something so embarrassing like Evan had nearly done in the middle of the song, but he looked the way Evan felt after an exhausting therapy session.

He expected Connor to do something. Something along the lines of yelling or demanding answers about his performance at yesterday's auditions. But he simply put his ukulele back in its case and turned the key in the car's ignition.

* * *

Unlike the walk to the park, the drive home was silent and for once, Evan didn't feel a desire to fill it with noise. The quiet had a strange dichotomy to it, being both comforting and electrifying. It made Evan both relax into his car seat and sneak nervous glances to Connor. Something had happened during that song. Something that changed their friendship into something a little less of an artificial title and into something a little more real. Connor had showed him something true—something that was normally armored with anger, sarcasm, and pot. Evan had been vulnerable, and he had been rewarded with an equal show of vulnerability from Connor. It made him feel (almost) special.

When Connor pulled into Evan's driveway, he put the car into park and turned in his seat. Connor took a deep breath. "Hansen… I…" He shook his head and laughed a bit, obviously trying to dispel the tension in his voice. "Making music with you…" He looked at Evan solidly in the eye. "It's a goddamn revelation. You felt that, right?"

Evan bit his lip and nodded.

"Is there any way, _any way,_ I can convince you to be in mine and Zoe's band?"

Evan dropped his eyes to his hands. He wanted to say yes. He so _badly_ wanted to say yes. But he learned his lesson. He knew the limits of his fear. And he knew if he made promises now, he'd only disappoint Connor later. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Connor sighed. "Yeah. Okay."

"I wish… I wish I didn't care what other people thought, you know?" Evan said. His voice was shaking so bad that his entire body trembled. "I wish I could turn that part of my brain off. But I can't. As soon as I think people might be watching me, I just… I panic. I freeze. I run away."

Connor didn't say anything. When Evan looked to him, Connor pointedly looked away and out the window.

Slowly, Evan unbuckled himself and let himself out of the car. But instead of closing the door behind him, he leaned down and said, "You don't have to be my friend anymore. I'll-I'll even white out your name on my cast if you want."

That awkward laugh came out of Connor once again. "I _really_ want to take you up on that."

For once, Evan was prepared when the worst answer came. He couldn't see any other path forward for them, not when he kept denying Connor's wishes and betraying his expectations. So Evan nodded his head and closed the door. He walked to the front door, almost proud of his numb acceptance of his failed friendship. He would be strong. He would get through this without falling apart. But he only got a few steps when he heard Connor's window roll down.

"Hansen," he called, and Evan turned. "Need a ride to school on Monday?"

Evan blinked. "I walk to school."

"Okay. Do you _want_ a ride to school on Monday?"

"Sure?"

Connor patted the side of his door. "Then I'll see you then."

In shock, Evan nodded and walked into the house. When he closed the door behind him, an incredulous smile fluttered on to his lips. For the first time since this whole thing with Connor started, he could envision a future for this strange relationship. It wasn't the friendship Connor had originally wanted, but maybe, just maybe, Connor might be happy with Evan, weaknesses and all, even if he didn't sing for his band. He walked upstairs to his bedroom, almost (dare he think it) happy.

And if Connor stayed parked in the driveway for a bit too long—if Connor stared at the Hansen home with a face washed in guilt—Evan was kept blissfully ignorant.


	5. Chapter 5

**JARED:** Hey jerkoff, you're not doing anything today, right?

Evan sighed. It was Sunday morning and once again he was home alone. For a moment, he entertained the idea of not answering or lying to Jared. But since the other option was staying at home and over-thinking his time with Connor yesterday to the point where he turned the (potentially) wonderful memory into some sort of seed for a nightmare, he texted his standard reply.

 **EVAN:** No plans. What's up?

 **JARED:** So you know how I'm an awesome rockstar now?

 **JARED:** Well, this awesome rockstar has band practice today and I require a roadie.

For not the first time, Evan wondered why Jared would reach out to him. He had all his band camp friends. He had his gamer group that met at the library once a month. Why hadn't he called any of them instead of the family friend with a broken arm? Sure, he wasn't so disabled that he couldn't carry the smaller pieces, or help Jared carry the bigger pieces with his one good arm, but it did seem like he wouldn't be an ideal first choice.

 **EVAN:** I don't know. I made an idiot out of myself at auditions.

 **JARED:** Ha. True. Your attempts at getting into Zoe's pants with one of her favorite songs was truly an epic fail.

 **JARED:** But I guarantee she hasn't given you a second thought. So don't worry about it.

 **EVAN:** Thanks...

 **JARED:** Waaa waaa. Get the fuck over yourself.

 **JARED:** Pick you up in 30?

 **EVAN:** Fine.

* * *

Turns out, practice was at the Murphy house.

More accurately, practice was at the Murphy mansion.

In the back of his mind, he always assumed that the Murphy family was well off. Connor had played a dozen different instruments on stage during his time with Zombie Unicorn and Zoe never seemed to wear the same clothes twice. He had expected Jared to drive him to the part of town his mother used to drive to for garage sales—where the homeowner's secondhand furniture was nicer than any firsthand furniture that Heidi Hansen could afford. But Jared drove to the far north side of town, where the city became less city and more a sprawling countryside. Here, the homes were far apart, each with huge lawns and ornate landscaping. The Murphy home in particular was so big that their driveway was a circle with a fountain in the middle. There were even white pillars beside the front's French doors.

Jared parked his parent's rusted Chevrolet Astro behind a lime green Volkswagen Beetle, which, judging by the LUVGMA license plate, Evan guessed was Alana's. Jared let the engine hum as he shook his head at the Murphy Mansion. "What the fuck am I doing here, Evan?" Jared said, laughing in disbelief.

Evan's lips twitched upwards. "Being an awesome rockstar?"

"Right, right." Jared turned the van off, did a complicated drum beat on the steering wheel, then flicked Evan's forehead like he was the ending cymbal crash to a drum solo. "Let's do this thing."

Alana opened the doors for them when they started hauling stuff in, informing them that the parents were out and Connor and Zoe were getting the practice space ready. She was wearing a skirt and a polo shirt, and Evan was grateful. He had dressed in khakis and a polo shirt, which Jared had made fun earlier. At least now he wouldn't be the only "over-dressed nerd" in the house. She directed them downstairs, giving Evan and Jared no time to gape at the huge foyer, sweeping staircases, and framed artwork as tall as Evan.

The downstairs was more laid-back, even if it was still excessively lavish. There was a bar with leather high top seats, a movie area with a huge projection screen and surround sound speakers, and a room with a pool and poker table. But the most awe inspiring part of the downstairs was the practice space. It was _huge_ —as in the ceiling was at least two stories tall, huge. The floor was shiny laminated wood with rugs cushioning the dozens of instruments scattered around the room, including two pianos (one electric, one baby grand), at least seven different guitars, two bass guitar, a cello, violin, a drum kit, and so much more. Evan later found out the room had originally been a racquetball court for Connor's dad and his work associates. But when Connor and Zoe's music playing got too loud, the Murphys added some soundproof panels to the walls and ceiling and made it into their personal studio.

As Evan and Jared transferred the eleaborate drum kit in, Zoe and Connor strummed on their instruments while Alana took copious notes on her clipboard. In between trips, Evan heard Zombie Unicorn songs as well as the song he had overheard in the school hallway three weeks ago. He met Connor's eyes during it and blushed when Connor looked back and mouthed Evan's lyrics.

When they finally finished setting up Jared's drum set, Evan realized he had no idea what he would do. There weren't exactly chairs in the studio—only stools and benches that were paired with specific instruments. He hovered awkwardly behind Jared as he warmed up with an impressive drum solo until Zoe walked over and yelled, "If it's too loud in here for you, feel free to crash in the movie room."

He tried to answer, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth—a common ailment whenever he got too close to the perfection that was Zoe Murphy. Today she was dressed in a simple black tank top and a pair of jeans that were slightly ripped at the bottom hems. Her hair, a multitude of rainbow colors Jared had labeled "holosexual," was tied up in a simple ponytail that swished over her shoulder. She was so pretty. And he was so awkward. And a giant nerd. With weirdly poofy hair. So he ended up just smiling and ducking his head for an answer, and settled into the bench beside the baby grand piano.

After everyone warmed up, Connor and Zoe played Jared and Alana the songs they were working on. Alana wrote down everything they said and organized their discussions into what she called, "mind maps." Jared didn't talk so much as drum. It involved a few too many drum solos at first, but it eventually winded down into something more cooperative (or at least, cooperative enough that Conner didn't threaten to smash his snare drum through Jared's skull. Again).

Then Connor played their song.

Well, really, it was Connor's song. Evan knew that. But it had played so often in Evan's head since that day three weeks ago that it almost felt like a part of himself. He was so caught in the melody that when Connor looked at him, Evan didn't avoid his gaze. He held it, despite the challenge he saw in Connor's eyes. He knew it wasn't going to be easy to maintain a friendship with him. Connor was angry and confrontational and less than pleased that Evan refused to be his singer. But he was also the closest thing Evan had to a true connection with someone his own age. He even smiled a bit to show Connor that he was glad to be here, without actually saying it and sounding unbearably corny.

Then Connor started to sing.

To be even more specific, Connor started to sing his lyrics with a voice so pure and clear that Evan felt goosebumps rising on his skin.

" _When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around, do you ever really crash, or even make a sound? Did I even make a sound? Did I even make a sound? It's like I never made a sound. Will I ever make a sound?"_

When the music stopped, Evan couldn't stop himself from applauding. Zoe gave him an amused smile, which made his cheeks flame. He practically sat on his hands, then asked eagerly, "So are you the band's singer?"

Connor brushed his hair back. "Temporarily. Until we find someone else."

"But why?" Evan couldn't help continuing. "You're voice is great."

"It's not enough."

"Sounded pretty damn good to me," Jared offered, holding up a drumstick.

"I, too, think it was adequate. And I have a great ear when it comes to pitch," Alana added.

"What's with those lyrics?" Zoe said, as she softly strummed an acoustic guitar.

"It fits with the song," Connor said, a little harsher than necessary. He turned to Jared and Alana, "And being 'pretty damn good' or 'adequate' isn't enough."

Zoe gave a wry smile to the group. "Nobody is good enough in Connor's book." She turned to Connor. "And I thought we'd agreed to go for a more lighthearted approach."

"You said that. I didn't agree," Connor then added, "And you'd be good enough if you weren't so scared of being honest."

"Whoa, hold the fuck up. _Zoe's_ not even good enough in your book?" Jared asked. "I don't even want to know what you think about me."

"Yeah, you don't," Connor snapped. Evan shifted in his seat. He wasn't a Connor expert yet. Not by any means. But the suddenly stiff calm in his shoulders reminded him of the way he looked before he had pushed Evan in the hallway.

And didn't that seem like a lifetime ago?

"Not this again," Zoe muttered, standing up as she lifted the guitar strap away from her neck.

Connor rose with her. "Excuse me if I don't want to sing about some fucking My Little Ponies while commenting lightly on some hashtagged social justice warrior trend. We're better than that."

"Audiences respond better to a light touch. Remember what happened at Duluth?"

"This song is different." Connor was practically in her face at this point, his voice getting so loud that Evan begin to curl into himself. "You know this has the ability to be something real, but you'd rather just make into some sort of meme reference."

Zoe turned around and her ponytail swished so violently it almost slapped her in the face. "Yeah, I do. You know why? Because nobody wants to hear a song about how you almost killed yourself."

Evan froze and suddenly couldn't breathe. He registered Zoe and Connor continuing to fight in front of him. He registered Alana getting up, separating them like some sort of referee. When Connor started to lean over Alana, when spit started to literally fly from his mouth, Jared got involved and attempted to pull him back. This only made Connor flail like a trapped beast and Zoe yell even louder and Alana yelled over her and Jared yelled at Connor and Evan couldn't take it and he jumped off the bench and ran out of the room.

* * *

He ended up sitting in the movie theater room for the rest of the practice. Jared was still his ride—Evan wasn't stupid enough to walk the ten or so miles back to his house. He would have liked to turn on the projector and to fill the room with sound, but there were too many remotes, which left Evan too intimidated to turn anything on. So he sat in silence and spiraled.

Evan couldn't be sure, but he thought maybe their arguing had stopped before he slammed open the doors to leave. Or maybe the sound proofing of the room had swallowed all the chaos behind him. Panic made him forget what came first: the door closure or the silence. He hated to think his action were so dramatic that it made everyone else in the room pause. But the residual embarrassment was worth it if it had made them stop.

He had never seen anyone fight like that before. Sure, Connor had yelled at him and pushed him. His Mom had shouted at Dad a few times over the phone. Jared sometimes screamed at the TV when he was playing Fortnite. But this was entirely different. Connor was like a wild animal and Zoe was a hunter and both were out to kill. He didn't know what made him feel more sick—Connor's near-violent actions, or Zoe's cruel words about "Connor's" lyrics. They were brother and sister. How could Connor stand to hurt her? How could Zoe mock one of the worst moments of Connor's (Evan's) life?

"Are you alright?"

Evan violently jumped out of his seat. He had been sitting at the end of a leather couch with his knees drawn against his chest and his chin resting on the space between his knees. As a result, he fell in a tangled clump onto the floor.

The owner of the voice, a red-haired woman dressed in yoga workout gear, gave an overly dramatic gasp and ran to help him up. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you."

"No, I'm s-sorry," Evan stammered. "I'm just—this isn't my house—I have no right—"

"It's fine, your fine. I just want to make sure you were doing okay."

"Yeah, no, I'm alright," Evan hid his shaking hands. "Super, even."

Clearly, she didn't believe him, but thankfully she was kind enough to let it go. She held out a hand. "I'm Cynthia, Connor and Zoe's mom." Evan wiped his hand on his khakis before grasping her hand in a quick shake. "Are you a member of their band? Should I tell them that you're here?"

"No, I-I'm waiting until they're done," Evan cleared his throat. "I'm Evan Hansen. Connor's…" Dare he say it? "Friend."

He barely had time to say the word before Cynthia Murphy wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and pressed her head into his shoulder. Evan was shocked. He couldn't remember the last time he had been hugged like this. Sure, Mom hugged him all the time, but they were quick, loose, and usually with one arm on her way out the door. This hug was long, tight, and with both arms enveloping him completely. Plus, there was the smell difference. Mom always smelled vaguely like her various perfumes and hospital. Mrs. Murphy smelled like fresh powder deodorant and apples. (The way he always imagined moms should smell.)

He snapped out of it when heard a soft, pitched inhale and he realized Mrs. Murphy was crying. "You saved my boy," she said, her voice cracking. "I don't know how I could ever thank you."

Evan patted her on the back awkwardly as his shoulder became damp. He didn't deserve this. Evan just happened to be there. She was treating him like some sort of hero, which was completely wrong and stupid because he was Evan Hansen, who couldn't even stand to stay in a room when people were shouting. The longer she cried, the bigger of a fraud he felt, until he eventually stepped away and gave her a smile he hoped looked sympathetic instead of sick.

"I'm sorry for blubbering like that," Mrs. Murphy said, wiping the dark smudges under her eyes. She laughed a bit and sobbed, "And I got mascara all over your beautiful blue shirt."

"It's okay," Evan hurriedly said.

"Nonsense," she said, clearing her throat. When she spoke next, it was with more control. "What size shirt do you wear? I'll buy you a new one."

"Oh, you don't have to—"

"You look like a medium. Does that sound right?"

"Really. I have, like, five other blue polos—"

"Oh, let me. Connor and Zoe haven't let me buy them clothes in years. It will give me something to do tomorrow, since my spin class has been canceled."

"Then… sure. I guess. If you want to. If it's not too much trouble."

"Not too much trouble at all." She looked at the practice room doors. "They might be awhile. You want a snack or anything while you wait?"

"No, that's fine." He expected her to quickly move upstairs. But she kept standing there expectantly. Like she had all the time in the world to make sure he had everything he needed. It was that patience, that steady presence, that eventually gave him the courage to say, "But uh… could you tell me how to turn on the TV?"

She smiled warmly. "I'd be happy to, Evan."

* * *

By the time practice had finished and the doors opened, Evan was almost at the end of _Phantom of the Opera,_ which Mrs. Murphy had strongly suggested once he told her he liked comedies and musicals. Mrs. Lindgren had played him the original Broadway recording dozens of times over the years, but he had never watched the 2004 film. The singing in the movie wasn't bad, it just seemed so off that it made him vaguely uncomfortable each time Christine didn't perform her arias to their fullest potential or when the Phantom lacked his powerful vibrato. Still, he was enjoying himself. He was humming along with "The Point of No Return" when Zoe, Connor, Jared, and Alana walked over and slumped down in the chairs. He quickly lowered the volume and looked at their faces carefully. Nobody looked angry anymore, but nobody looked happy either. Except maybe Alana, who always appeared happiest when she was in charge of something, which at the moment was apparently assigning homework assignments to her band mates.

Alana stood in the middle of the exhausted group and tapped her clipboard importantly. "As your appointed Social Media Coordinator, I will be setting up our new Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram accounts this evening after I finish with youth group and tutoring sessions. Zoe, you will review your school notebooks to find those song ideas you referenced; you will also be in charge of sending out Facebook invitations once I am done setting everything up. Connor, you are to write updated lyrics to the song currently titled, "Sad Tree Song" and iron out the melodies for the second guitar and bass guitar. Finally, Jared, you will create a band logo by 8 PM tonight so I can use it for our accounts—I'll text you the size dimensions I require before church."

"We don't even have a band name yet," Jared said, looking a little overwhelmed as he slumped into the couch beside Evan.

Alana flipped to a different page on her clipboard. "I thought we settled on 'High School Rejects?'"

"I was kidding when I suggested that!" Jared protested.

"And we all liked it," Zoe said, sighing as she sank into the opposite end of the couch.

"It's good, because it's ironic," Alana explained to Evan.

"Yeah. Ironic," Connor said, his face muffled as he had opted to lay on the movie room's thick carpet instead of the furniture. Evan felt himself relax at his tone. Connor no longer had that terrible, sharp edge to his voice and its absence was a relief.

"So you're telling me I have…" Jared groaned as he looked at the time on his phone, " _four_ hours to make a logo? I'm not that awesome. Fuck, I'm not even that artistic."

"You are the only one with the appropriate software," Alana said, entirely unsympathetic. "You are taking digital media classes, are you not?"

"Well, yeah. Doesn't mean I'm any good."

"I have faith in you." Alana finally rested the clipboard to her hip and looked at the rest of the room. "Any other order of business before we depart?"

Zoe swayed her head lazily to Jared. "You want to keep your drums here for now? We're going to be meeting a lot over the next few weeks. You can take our Yamaha kit home to practice on."

"Works for me," Jared said doubtfully. Whether the tone was in response to their band name or to the idea of leaving his drums behind, Evan couldn't say. Jared groaned as he stood up and then patted Evan on the head as though he were a poofy hair puppy. "Let's go, roadie."

Evan dutifully helped Jared load the Yamaha drum kit into his van. When they finished packing up, Jared looked at the back of his van a bit mournfully. "This is a kiddie kit."

Evan shuffled on his feet. "Will that be a problem? For practicing, I mean?"

"Not if he's as good as he claims," Connor said. He was at the front door, watching Evan and Jared load up. Zoe walked by him to enter the house after saying goodbye to Alana, and Evan couldn't help but notice the wide space the two gave each other. They may not be visibly angry anymore, but things clearly hadn't been resolved.

"You saw these mad skills," Jared said, gesturing to his whole body (a bit lewdly, which made Evan cringe).

Connor raised his eyebrows, then he turned to Evan. "Cynthia wants to know if you want to stay for supper."

Evan widened his eyes. "Oh, uh, I don't-I wouldn't want to impose."

Jared dropped his pose. "Hey! I'm a good drummer, you fucker."

Connor ignored him. "It be more of an imposition on your taste buds. She's making meatloaf. Out of tofu."

Jared: "If you would have let me auditioned, you would have seen me kill it with 'Tom Sawyer.'"

Evan: "Um, well, as long as you're okay with it."

Connor: "I wouldn't have passed on the invite if I wasn't okay with it."

Jared: "You're doing this to annoy me, aren't you?"

Connor: "Only if it's working."

Jared: "And if it's not?"

Connor: "I have sharpies and your drum kit."

"Well," Jared clapped his hands together in mock enthusiasm, "Looks like I have a logo to make. Have fun with your awesome new friend, Evan."

Less than a minute later, Jared was gone and Evan and Connor were left alone outside. When Connor didn't immediately start speaking, a sense of dread filled Evan's stomach. Oh no. He was still mad at Evan for not singing, why else would he be staring at Evan instead of talking.

Evan blurted, "You know, if you're only being nice to me because your mom asked, you don't have to. I can just call Jared back to drive me, so you don't have to—"

"Hansen."

"Y-Yes?"

"Shut up and come inside."

"…Okay."

* * *

They ended up going to Connor's room while Mrs. Murphy finished making supper. It smelled… interesting, to say the least. But the idea of having hot food that wasn't take out or cafeteria food was too tempting to pass up. As he followed Connor up the staircase, he pulled out his phone to text Mom that he'd be eating over at Jared's. He didn't know why he lied, except maybe he didn't quite trust his friendship with Connor yet, and telling his mom that he had a new friend might only get her (and his) hopes up. She replied back with a smiley face the same time Connor opened the door to his room.

It was… strangely homey. Where the rest of the house screamed expensive and fine tastes, Connor's bedroom was downright comfortable. The bed had a red comforter with plaid sheets. The bedside table had a single lamp, some bottles of nail polish, and a half a dozen library books. The walls were empty, save for two windows and a big bulletin board filled with tickets stubs and posters advertising Zombie Unicorn gigs.

The heart of the room was clearly on the wall opposite of his bed. There, Connor had a big desk with two monitors, an impressive microphone, and various electronics that looked vaguely musical in nature. The space not filled with equipment was filled with energy drink cans, an open bag of Veggie Straws, notebooks with messy handwriting, and even more library books. On either side of the desk was a variety of instruments: a guitar, a bass guitar, and a black padded thing that looked like an electronic drum kit for a video game.

Connor was watching Evan as though waiting for a reaction. Evan swallowed the lump in his throat that inevitably came anytime someone expected him to voice an opinion. He hated giving opinions because what if he changed his opinion later, but someone held him to his original opinion, thus making him accountable for his first opinion for all time? The uncertainty usually drove him to silence. But when silence wasn't an option, he tried to be generic as possible. "It's, ah… nice."

"Not what you were expecting?" Connor pushed.

"Not exactly, I guess." When Connor kept staring, Evan reluctantly added, "I guess I expected shelves full of CDs and sheet music."

Apparently this was an appropriate answer, because the stiffness in Connor's shoulders relaxed as he walked to his desk. He sat in the heavy roller chair and indicated Evan should sit in the simple black fold out chair on the side. "All of my music is digital."

Evan sat down. "And the sheet music?"

Connor shrugged. "Never really used it." At Evan's wide eyes, Connor added, "I know how to read it—but it's easier for me to just listen to something and replicate it."

"That's… that's really amazing."

"You do the same thing with your voice, don't you?"

"I mean… mostly. But when I practice with Mrs. Lindgren, she makes me use sheet music."

Connor's eyes narrowed. "You have a music instructor?"

"Not really. She's my next door neighbor and she was my babysitter when I was a kid. It was just one of things she did to entertain me when I was little. And it… well, it just kind of grew into something a little more formal after, I guess? Not that we meet regularly or anything like that."

Connor drummed his fingers on his desk. "I thought you didn't sing in front of anybody."

"I really don't. Just Mom, Mrs. Lindgren, and, well… you."

Connor chewed his lip and spun in his chair so he faced the monitors instead of Evan. Evan drummed his fingers anxiously on his khakis for awhile before he gestured to the desk. "So, uh, is this where you record your music?"

Connor hummed. "Sorta. I just plug in all the instruments into the computer. A program translates it into sheet music." He pointed to the guitar near Evan. "I'll be using that later to write Alana's guitar part for the 'Sad Tree Song.'"

Connor's anger from before resurfaced when he said the song's title. Evan felt himself tense too, and not just at Connor's emotions. Listening to Zoe berate Connor for the lyrics of the song… it had been incredibly rough. True, he knew that the things he felt were stupid and over-dramatic and nobody wanted the burden of hearing them. But… Connor had responded so positively to what he had sang and it had made him think that maybe, just maybe, the feelings he had were understandable, maybe even relatable, instead of pathetic.

"You pissed I sang your lyrics?" Connor asked.

Evan shook his head. "I don't mind. I just… it didn't go over very well."

Connor picked up one of his energy drink cans, shook it, and took a slurp. "That's Zoe, not you. She has a thing about being too 'real' with her music." He crushed the can and threw it to a blue bin in the corner of the room. "She thinks every song should be happy and filled with rainbows and shit. I mean, you listened to Zombie Unicorn, right?" He spoke faster, becoming more passionate. "You can't tell me you were drawn to the music because of the lyrics, right?"

"I don't know. Some of it's catchy."

Connor snorted "Catchy is about as kind as you can get. That or maybe 'fun.' All Neil ever cared about was trending. He'd take our songs and then do searches for the most popular hash tags, or go to comic conventions to see what was popular in the artist's alley for a trendy visual. None of it was real. Not like your lyrics."

And suddenly, the weight was back. The weight that Evan felt when Connor asked him to sing, to audition, to walk with him to Ellison Park. He knew with sudden clarity what Connor was about to ask of him and he scrunched up in his chair, bracing himself.

"Help me write the songs."

Okay, it wasn't so much a question than a command, but Evan had basically been right. He waited for that black hole of anxiety to split open his chest. He waited for his breathing to change into short gasps. He waited for the sense of shame and sadness that would inevitably fall over him as he prepared to let Connor down.

None of that happened.

"Do the others have to know?" Evan eventually asked. It was bad enough to withstand Zoe's comments as it was. It be a million times worse if she responded that way knowing it was Evan, not Connor, who drew on his most desperate emotions and memories to craft lyrics into something meaningful.

Connor's eyes widened. Evan had surprised him. Well, Evan had surprised himself with his reaction, so he couldn't really blame him. "Not if you don't want them to."

Evan took a deep breath. "Zoe probably won't like anything I come up with."

Connor scoffs. "Zoe needs to get over herself." Then Connor smiled halfheartedly. "But it doesn't help that I'm the one singing. It be different if it were someone else." He gave Evan a very pointed look which Evan ignored.

"Why? Your voice is great." Evan still felt awe as he remember Connor's voice, able to sing those high notes with a greater ease than Evan ever had.

"It's not the quality of my voice. It's the content of it." At Evan's blank look, Connor gave a shrug. "I'm full of piss and vinegar, Hansen. It's not possible for me to sing your words with any real authenticity."

Evan ducked his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I mean, I think you could sing anything. But… I know you want me to do it. And… well, I'm sorry."

Connor sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I know." Then Connor paused and asked, "What if there was a way you just _knew_ people would like your singing. Would that change anything?"

Evan shook his head, transforming his slight panic at the odd energy in Connor's voice into a nervous laugh. "Nothing like that can be known, Connor."

"Yeah… I guess not." Connor shook his head, slapped his knee, and gave a bright, fake smile. "So… you want to help me write a sad song about trees?"

Evan laughed at his dramatics, feeling the tension leave him. "Let's do it."

* * *

Monday came. Monday went. And nothing happened. No life altering events. No confrontations with the worst parts of himself. No reminders of Evan's traumatic past experiences (other than the normal mini-spirals that happened unprompted in his head.) It was just a normal school day with normal school anxieties. Connor picked him up like he promised. Evan ate lunch with Jared, who asked him for opinions on the band's new logo (which Alana had been annoyed he hadn't finished by last night.) Connor picked him up after school and they worked on the "Sad Tree Song" (now tentatively titled "Falling in a Forest"). He had more of Mrs. Murphy's strange tofu (which Evan liked more than either Zoe or Connor). He had gotten a brand new polo shirt (with a the price tag still attached to it that Evan tore off before his mother could see). He even sang a little before he went to sleep. And that was it. But it felt good. Really good. Like this was the first day of his rest of his life, and he was completely okay with that. Happy, even.

Then Tuesday came.

The first change was minor and exciting. He had three new friend requests on Facebook: one from Connor Murphy, one from Zoe Murphy (which Evan's heart admittedly skipped a beat) and, weirdly enough, Neil Armstrung. He accepted them all, feeling a bit surreal that this was the life he now lived. Four weeks ago, Zombie Unicorn was on a different planet of cool. Today, he was Facebook friends with three of the four members.

The second change was even more exciting. Alana had finished High School Reject's social media pages and had sent him an invite to follow. Evan immediately did. He was surprised by how much had already been done (although he really shouldn't be, because this was Alana and Alana always did above and beyond what was expected of her). Jared's logo had turned out pretty cool. It was simple, just the words "H.S. Rejects" with a chalk-like font and little stick figures to represent the four members. There were already five posts. The first was just a general welcome, but the next four were about the members. They were titled, for example, _Meet the Lead Guitarist: Zoe Murphy._ The post included a brief bio and a picture of the person with their chalk stick figure as well as some funny words and images around their headshot. There was also a link to a YouTube clip that showed off the band member's skill. Zoe and Connor obviously had photos and videos from Zombie Unicorn, but Alana and Jared relied on home videos and photos. Alana had used her school picture and a video of her playing guitar at her Grandmother's funeral two months ago (which was both incredibly sad and a bit awkward). Jared used a purposely bad selfie and a video one of his friends took of him at band camp that ended with him chugging a Mountain Dew can and smashing it against his head. Over all, it was pretty cool. And thanks to Zoe and Connor's existing audience, the Facebook page already had a thousand plus followers.

Jared got a lot of attention at school, which resulted in him bailing on his tentative lunch plans with Evan. Since Evan couldn't find Connor in the cafeteria, he left to find a shady spot in the quad.

So there he was, sitting underneath a poplar tree (another Weed Tree, heh), munching on the lunch he had packed, which was a bag of carrot sticks and a bag of potato chips. They had run out of deli meat last night and Evan wasn't desperate enough to resort to a can of spaghetti-o's quite yet. He had been disappointed at first with his solitude, but once he realized how loud his food was to chew, he was glad for it. He still had to stop chewing a few times any time someone walked close to him, but he was able to get through half the bag of carrots and the entire bag of potato chips when his stomach finally stopped growling. So he leaned back against the poplar tree, and just relaxed for a little bit.

Then he heard it.

With a horrible sense of dread, he stood up. He turned and started to walk in the direction the sound was coming from—two girls, freshmen by his guess, were looking intently at a phone.

This couldn't be happening.

This absolutely could _not_ be happening.

But the closer he got, the more sure he became. He wanted to run away. He wanted to stop moving. But until he was 100% certain, he couldn't afford to stop inching closer. He needed to know the truth, even if the truth was certain to kill this calmer state of mind he had finally achieved for the first time in years.

So, like a creep, he circled around the girls until he was approaching them from behind. They were so intent on watching the video ( _video!)_ that they didn't notice that Evan was practically over their shoulder. His desperate wish that he was having auditory hallucinations were gone, now that he could see the proof in front of him.

The girls were watching a video of him singing "Asleep" with Connor accompanying him on the ukulele.

He watched in numb horror. The way Evan's eyes had focused on the Weed Tree at Ellison Park made it look like Evan was staring directly into the camera. _Connor's phone_ , Evan remember almost numbly. He had the device on his windshield that held his phone horizontally. Connor had fiddled with it before and after Evan had sung, hadn't he? Evan watched the way his emotions played out across his face on the girl's cellphone screen. He watched the way he had stopped to look at Connor in the middle of the song, as though sharing a silent secret. He watched how his voice had almost broken with emotion at the end before dropping away into soft goodbyes. And then the video ended and suddenly the girls were looking at him.

"Are you Evan Hansen?" The girl on the left, a brunette with braided pigtails, said breathlessly.

Evan shook his head, backing away.

"Look at the cast!" The person on the right, a girl with wild, black curls, said enthusiastically. "It's even got Connor's autograph!"

He didn't even make an excuse. He just turned and ran.

Kids looked at him oddly as he sprinted past them in the hallway, but for once he didn't care. He couldn't care. He didn't have room for it. Once he got to a bare bit of hallway, he dashed into the first empty classroom he came across and immediately opened his phone. His phone was silenced during school, not only because it was the school rule, but because Evan hated the attention the vibrating sounds or ringing tones a phone would inevitably draw. It usually didn't matter, since Evan usually didn't have any notifications or messages during school hours.

Today, he had nearly a hundred.

With shaking, sweaty hands, he scrolled all the way to the bottom and clicked on the very first notification before his cell phone had erupted:

 _High School Rejects has tagged you in a post._

Feeling vaguely like the way he had felt the day Jared sent him Zombie Unicorn's break-up announcement, Evan opened the notification and found High School Reject's sixth latest post.

 **High School Rejects**  
 _11:23 pm_  
Meet our Singer: Evan Hansen!

There was no photo of him, like there was of Zoe, Jared, Connor, and Alana. His bio was only one sentence: _Evan likes to sing almost as much as he likes trees_. And there it was—the link to the video he heard in the quad, which he was somehow able to convince his finger to tap open.

 **The Smiths - Asleep (Cover by Evan Hansen)**  
 _2,357 views_  
HighSchoolRejectsBand  
 _Published on Sept 24, 2018_  
Evan Hansen's tryout for High School Rejects. Connor Murphy on ukulele.

He quickly turned off his phone and started breathing heavily into his hands. This wasn't really happening, was it? Connor wouldn't have betrayed his trust like that. They were friends, right? Friends didn't do stuff like put the most vulnerable version of yourself out on the web for the whole world to see. Especially without your permission. Connor would _never_ do that. Right?

 _Right?_

"Hansen!"

A hand roughly shook him by the shoulder and suddenly Connor was there, crouching down in front of him, just like that day at Elm Saint Peter's. "Where's your Xanax?"

Evan only shook his head as his breaths shallowed. He had left his bag, his lunch, his mind in the quad. He started to hyperventilate. "Please tell me you didn't do that," Evan gasped. "Please tell me this isn't real. This isn't real, right? This isn't real. It can't be real. _It can't be real_."

"It's real," Connor said, his face unreadable.

And for the first time, Evan cried actual tears in front of Connor.

He hated himself for it. He had wrongfully trusted Connor with his most vulnerable parts, and now he was putting his ugliest parts on display in front of him. In desperation, Evan pulled his shirt up, hiding his face behind the fabric of his polo. His new polo shirt that smelled vaguely of Mrs. Murphy.

"Listen," Connor said, still holding Evan by the shoulder. "They love you. They think you're—"

"You had… no right," Evan interrupted between his angry sobs. "That was… you had no right…"

"Look, this proves it! This proves that people like your voice."

Evan blindly slapped Connor's hand away. "Just stop. Stop talking."

"Your voice is fucking beautiful!"

"Stop _!_ " Evan pulled down his shirt, certain his face was a mess with tears, red splotches, and an ugly gasping mouth. "I can't… I can't…"

"Can't what, Hansen? Take a chance?"

"No. I—I just can't."

"Well, that's just fucking pathetic."

" _I know!_ " And suddenly Evan had too much air and too much words and it all just spilled out and he couldn't stop even though he knew what he's saying can never be unsaid. "I _know_ I'm fucking pathetic. I _know_ I'm a piece of shit. And I _know_ it's up to me to get myself out of this mess. But every time I try to fix myself, every time I try to be something better than I am, it just _blows_ up in my face and I don't think I could survive it happening to me again. I trusted you, Connor. I _trusted you_. This could literally kill me if this ends badly and you don't give a _fuck_ because I'm just a _goddamn_ beautiful voice to you. _Augh!"_

Evan, so caught up in his tirade, pounded his dominant hand against his desk to make his point. His broken arm screamed in protest and Evan cradled it against his chest as tears of pain joined his tears of panic.

"Evan…" Connor whispered. Evan shut his eyes. It was a sorrowful whisper. It was a whisper that could undo him. "I'm sorry."

Evan covered his eyes. "Just go. Please." And his voice cracked and he hated how weak he sounded, but he kept repeating himself, over and over, until Evan heard retreating footsteps. When Evan finally dropped his hands, Connor was gone and Evan was alone.

Again.


	6. Chapter 6

After Connor left, Evan sat in the empty classroom as the bell rang and kept sitting there as people came in. He stayed in the chair until a person, who had been coughing very pointedly beside his desk, finally asked him to get up. That was when Evan realized that the classroom he had escaped into wasn't his next class. Evan vaguely thought of how weird and pathetic he must look. His face never hid the evidence of shed tears. It blotched his cheeks and swelled his eyes, leaving him hoping for someone guessing he had allergies. Evan didn't have the presence of mind to pretend to sneeze and grab a tissue to sell the lie. His body had been reduced to nothing more than advanced motor functions. When the kid asked him to get out of the chair, Evan stood. When the teacher told him to get a tardy slip, he walked. When the office secretary asked him why he was running late, he shrugged. And when he got to his correct class, he sat.

He repeated these motions for his next two classes—not bothering to take notes, not speaking when a teacher asked him a question. Word of his state must have spread through the teachers' network, because when he walked into his final classroom for the day, his teacher ordered him to the nurse's office. His mental illness was a matter of public record to the faculty, but this was the first day Evan's deficiency was so obvious that they had felt compelled to take action.

(Not that Evan hadn't had panic attacks and dissociative states during school before. He just normally hid it a bit better, even if that meant covering his mental issues with false physical ones. He never felt too bad about those lies. Half the time he got so nervous and so guilty that he would throw up anyway.)

The nurse, Mr. Chapel, instructed Evan to lie down while he called Evan's mother and got someone to retrieve Evan's backpack from the quad. This meant Evan had until the bell rang to pull himself together. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to downplay the event to his mom. For that to happen, Evan would have to break his mind out of its protective numb shell—the shell his brain had built the instant Connor left the classroom.

It had been a necessary fortification to survive the school day, but logic told him (for emotions didn't exist for Evan in this state) that if he kept the armor on, it could transform into emptiness. Numbness, in small amounts was fine—Dr. Sherman called it the brain's form of morphine for painful experiences. But emptiness was a violent, empty action more comparable to unnecessary amputation. And if Evan's mind overdosed on numbness, it could lead him to cut out something very important—like his survival instinct.

Knowing emptiness could come wasn't a good enough reason to face his pain, so Evan's mostly indifferent mind sought another justification. Worse than worrying his mom, worse than being empty, would be another attempt, right? Then again, climbing that old oak tree, looking toward the sun, feeling it shine on his face had been a rather peaceful moment. Climbing it again wouldn't be too bad, especially if he ended his life after. Then he wouldn't have to worry about being broken and alone anymore, and really, would that be so bad?

He tried again.

Okay. Worse than worrying his mom, worse than being empty, worse than climbing trees, would be going to Ellison State Park—the one area he knew within walking distance that had tall, sturdy trees in a semi-secluded area. The downside was Ellison State Park had memories—memories that prompted flashbacks and nightmares that kept Evan awake for days on end. It would be tough, returning to the spot of Connor's (and his) attempt, not to mention Connor's betrayal. Then again, wouldn't this be the ultimate overwrite? Would turning his attempt into success be the thing to finally erase everything?

He was almost resigned. Almost ready to call it a day (call it a life). Until his final thought made him face his walls and break them:

If Evan went to Ellison State Park, there was a very high chance that Connor Murphy would be there. Connor Murphy, whose car Evan had seen almost every day during his summer internship. Connor Murphy, who said Evan's first name today for the first time in a voice so broken, it had nearly made Evan back down from his anger. Connor Murphy, who had driven to Ellison State Park the last time he had a really bad day. And while Evan didn't think he had the ability to inflict that level of pain on a person (because that would mean you had to matter to a person _as_ a person instead of a voice), he couldn't risk it. Not today.

In his final numb moments, Evan pulled the privacy curtains around the nurse's roll-away bed. He laid down, curling toward to the room's back corner. He took a deep breath.

And the wall cracked.

It was really that simple. Because even though he had inhaled and exhaled hundreds of times since his confrontation with Connor, he hadn't done it intentionally. And purposely breathing is drastically different than your body automatically doing it for you. (Because, for Evan, purposely breathing meant he was actively trying to live.)

Immediately, Evan's eyes heated, his throat tensed, and his nose expanded as though getting ready for a sob or a sneeze. His next breath was ragged. He brought his fists to his eyes, trying to grind out the weakness that threatened to spill out. It was the third breath that completely shattered the wall and suddenly he could _feel_ and he was _aware_. He had yelled at Connor. He had blanked out during three classes. And worst of all: his cellphone was in his pocket—his cellphone, which held hundreds of notifications of people passing judgment on the thing he guarded most preciously from the world. Since Evan was Evan, any outside negative opinion would be enough to turn the one thing (honestly, the _one thing_ ) that Evan truly liked about himself into the final piece of his self-loathing.

Eventually, Evan would have to face it. And eventually, it would destroy him. But for now, Evan reached into his pocket, felt for his phone's side button, and turned it off without having to look at the screen and cried silent tears until the school day ended.

* * *

It turned out Evan's mom had also turned off her cellphone. She did that sometimes after working nights or when she was in class so work couldn't call her and guilt her into working extra shifts. Mr. Chapel had left a message and offered to drive Evan home himself. But Evan must have been looking a lot better, because when Evan insisted he could walk home, Mr. Chapel eventually agreed (despite having that worried wrinkle in his brow).

After the hallways emptied, Evan left the nurse's office. Mr. Chapel followed Evan as he walked through the school until two kids appeared around a corner. Then, quite subtly, Mr. Chapel stepped up to walk by Evan's side, as though to block him from potential social interaction. Considering the two kids were holding cell phones and staring at him, Evan appreciated the gesture very, _very_ much. When they reached the parking lot, Mr. Chapel pretended not to have done anything, waving Evan goodnight as he got into his car in the empty parking lot (or so Evan thought).

It was like a bad horror movie when Mr. Chapel backed out to reveal a previously hidden car: a green Honda Civic with a _Republicans for Voldermort_ bumper sticker.

Evan's heart raced as he wildly looked about for an exit strategy. He couldn't talk to Connor now. He didn't know if he could talk to Connor ever again, and it wasn't just because he was (devasted? heartbroken?) angry. He was worried that Connor would speak the right combination of words that would lead Evan to believe his anger was unjustified. That Evan was the person at fault. So when the driver door opened, Evan backed away, ready to run.

Then Zoe Murphy stepped out.

For the briefest moment, Evan was so grateful that he quite forgot that Zoe was inevitably a person who saw his video. Not just that, but she was a person whose opinion of his singing mattered more than possibly anyone else's in the school. But for that instant, Evan was so happy that he wouldn't have to face Connor Murphy that all he saw was the girl of his dreams walking toward him, prompting an awkward smile and slightly sweaty hands.

Until he saw Zoe's small frown and all his fears and sickness born of anxiety flooded back into his system.

"Hi," she said.

He tried to return the greeting. He even tried to wave. But his tongue refused to budge from the roof of his mouth and his hands held firmly to the straps of his backpack. He just stood there in silence, staring at the ground, looking at the stars drawn on the hems of her jeans and waiting for what would inevitably become the cherry topper to his nightmare of a day.

"My brother didn't tell you he was recording, did he?"

He chanced a look to measure the weight of her tone to the expression he would find on her face. It wasn't empathy he found there, which was okay. He didn't know many people who had the ability to put themselves in Evan's shoes and imagine exactly how he might feel. Instead, there was sympathy in Zoe's eyes, shaded in a bit too much pity for Evan's liking. But it wasn't an inherently bad thing—it wasn't the condemnation or disgust he had prepared for, after all.

Evan slowly nodded the affirmative to her question.

Zoe sighed and nodded toward the car. "He's not here. He ditched after lunch and left his keys in my locker."

"Is he okay?" Evan immediately asked, and then almost hating himself for doing so. He couldn't even stay mad properly at a person without worrying about them. Then again, Connor's (and his) situation to bad life events tended to be more extreme than most.

Zoe gave a strange smirk and dug her phone out of her pocket. Evan cringed, bracing himself against whatever social media onslaught she was sure to show him. Instead, she showed him a screen filled with text messages from "Assface."

 **ZOE** : Why are your keys for your crappy car in my locker?

 **ASSFACE** : had 2go

 **ZOE:** Then why did we have to take your car today if you were just gonna leave anyway?

 **ASSFACE** : doesnt matter

 **ASSFACE:** tell hansen im not gonna kill myself

 **ZOE** : What the hell happened?

Zoe gave him a look, silently asking him to answer the last question that Connor had not responded to. Evan swallowed hard.

"I-I never agreed to become the singer for your band." He darted a quick look to her face before intently stared at the crack in the concrete stairs leading from the school to the parking lot. "Not that I don't want to, it's just… I can't?"

"And of course my asshole brother didn't respect your wishes." She scoffed bitterly. "He always does this."

That sounded a lot more like empathy than sympathy, which left a question Evan didn't quite know how to ask. "Did he… I mean, did Connor—"

"Try to control my musical career? Only all the time." She scuffed the ground with her shoe. "Hey, uh… can I give you a ride home? I want to talk to you, it's just awkward doing it in an empty parking lot."

Were it anybody else but Zoe Murphy, the answer would have been an easy no. He had just had a panic attack and could fall apart sobbing at any moment. Also, Connor's car was a bad, bad reminder of everything that had happened to cause said panic attack. He should just walk home and avoid people (forever).

But since it was Zoe Murphy, Evan got in the car.

Two minutes later they were driving and Zoe was staring intently at the road when she suddenly said, "I'm not an idiot. I know my brother is some sort of musical genius and he makes me a better guitar player. But he's a complete psychopath. You heard how he wrecked Neil's car with his bass, right? That's what he's like when he doesn't get his way. He's even tried to break into my bedroom, screaming that he was going to kill me when I refused to practice a new song with him."

"That's... that's terrible," Evan said. She met Evan's horrified expression as he continued, "Why are you still in a band with him?"

"Because the day I told him I wanted to stop playing was the day he tried to kill himself," she said, her voice devoid of emotion.

He had no words. His heart ached for her. "Oh, Zoe…"

She tucked a hair behind her ear. "I'm not like Mom and Dad. I know Connor tried to kill himself—it wasn't an accident. And I know he's probably not getting the help he needs. But even though it sucks for him, it sucks for me too, you know? I mean, it's sort of like those marriages you hear about in the news—how a wife won't leave an abusive husband because the guy says he'll kill himself if she does." She laughs bitterly the same moment Evan's throat clenches so hard he feels ready to choke.

Zoe absently wiped the tears at the corner of her eyes. She grins. "But the worst thing is I thought it was a wakeup call. He apologized to me at Elm Saint Peter's when Mom and Dad forced me to visit and told me he understood when I said I didn't want to come again. He said he wanted to start a band with me, and accepted it when I refused, then he apologized on Mom and Dad's behalf when they made me join his new band anyway to be a good influence. But that all could have been bullshit" She drummed her fingers on the gear stick, hesitating to say whatever was on her mind. "What really made me think he was turning his life around was you."

Dumbfounded, Evan stammered, "Wh-What do you mean?"

"I thought you two were friends," she shrugged as she turned the car onto his street. "He asked you to visit him at Elm Saint Peter's. You've put up with Mom's cooking to hang out with him. And that Asleep video, you two looked… I don't know. Like you were really there for each other or something." She shook her head. "I should have known better. You were probably just being nice to him because of the suicide thing and he took advantage of it and tried to manipulate you into doing something you didn't want to do."

Here's the thing: Evan really liked Zoe. He's liked her (loved her?) ever since she smiled at that jazz concert two years ago. It was stupid, really. He knew from social media how often girls were told to smile to look pretty and he kind of hated himself for liking her because of that smile. But in some ways it was different. His crush wasn't born out of how pretty she looked (although Zoe Murphy was the most gorgeous person he knew), but how connected she became with the music in that moment. And that powerful sense of connection spread from her smile to fingertips, to her guitar, to the speakers, and finally to the audience.

The month before the jazz band concert had been particularly bad for Evan. He was having a tough time adjusting to his new medication. Jared had officially labelled their friendship as nothing more than a familial obligation. Evan had desperately needed to sink into music, but a bad case of strep throat left him unable to utter a note for weeks. It was the first time he began to fantasize about death, but only the vague sense of not living anymore (he wouldn't get to the planning stage until his Junior year of high school). Going to the jazz band concert had been a desperate attempt to find some sort of comfort, and Zoe's performance gave that to him. It didn't turn his life around or anything dramatic like that, but it did shine a light in the darkness and it left him forever grateful for the unknown gift she had given him that day.

Maybe it was his deep gratitude—maybe it was a way for Evan to even out the unspoken debt between them. Evan didn't really know why he spoke the words he spoke next, but one thing was for certain: he just hoped it would bring Zoe the hope she so desperately needed.

"Connor is my friend, Zoe."

Her lips clenched as she flipped the blinker. Seconds later, she pulled into his driveway, parked, and turned in her seat. "He's not your friend, Evan. If he was your friend, he would have never recorded you and announced you as our singer without your permission."

"I-I'm not saying what he did wasn't wr-wrong," Evan stumbled. "And I'm really… I can't… I can't talk to him right now. But he _is_ my friend."

"Since when?"

The lies kept spilling out. "B-before the, ah, attempt."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Really?"

"Yeah, we, uh… hung out. At Ellison State Park, this summer. I mean, not a lot. I was interning, so I had to work. But he came a lot and we talked." As soon as he committed, it was like he couldn't stop. Saying that Connor was his friend could have been truth in the most optimistic of senses, but all of this? Connor would only deny it. But that wasn't enough. He had to make Zoe happy, even if it meant burning trust and bridges later.

"You talked," she said, still clearly not buying it. "About what?"

"Oh, you know. Normal friend stuff." She kept staring, so he quickly added, "Like our position on lawn gnomes. And aliens." There, that was easier. Lying was so much easier when there was some truth involved.

She huffed a small laugh. "Of course he would talk about aliens."

"Plus, he, uh, signed my cast before his, uh, attempt, so…" There was even an instagram video to prove it, although thinking of that video and that night twisted something violent in his gut.

Zoe sat in silence a long time, but Evan could see it worked. She softened at the edges. Her shoulders slumped, she leaned back in her chair, and she rolled her neck in an almost thoughtful air. When she looked back to Evan her hair had fallen back over her face and she looked the most vulnerable he had ever seen her.

"So…" Her voice was soft and small and Evan wanted nothing more than to protect that voice from the harshness of (the truth) the world. "Does that mean you're considering making this a thing?"

He nodded immediately, "Definitely."

It was like a spark and her entire face lit up. Evan had been right. The lies he had told had been the right if it could make Zoe this happy. She leaned close. "Are you serious? You'll really think about it?"

"Of course."

She held her fingers over her lips, the corners of her lips trembling upwards. It was such a heartwarming reaction and it gave Evan hope—hope that he would be able to look back on this day and find something worth remembering. Then she said, "I honestly would have been 100% fine if you didn't want to be in our band, but the fact that you are even considering it."

No. Nononono. He thought she had been talking about his friendship with Connor. Why would she change the topic? Why would she think that he would know that she was suddenly discussing their band. He was ready to correct her. Ready to give her the truth. Then she dropped her fingers and gave him a full smile. A Zoe Murphy smile. A smile that had given him the courage to carry on. A smile he might never be able to resist. "You have a beautiful voice, Evan."

And there it was. Zoe thought Evan had a beautiful voice. The words that should have been the ultimate outside validation to make him finally believe in himself. But that sentiment had been tainted. Sure, she hadn't said Evan had a "fucking beautiful" voice, but it didn't matter. Because when she spoke, he heard Connor. And instead of making him feel good with the rosy afterglow of an amazing compliment, it made his stomach drop.

"I, uh, thank you," Evan whispered, one he realized the silence had gone on too long.

She leaned closer to him until her elbow was resting on the center console. "I'm not expecting you to answer me right away. And if you answer no, that's fine. Because it's your voice and you have the right to choose to do with it what you want. But I would really appreciate it if you took a few days to think it over." And then she reached over and held his shoulder.

Zoe Murphy touched _his_ shoulder.

She gave a brief squeeze before she let go. "Connor is an ass and I'm sorry to claim him as my brother. But I think we could be something great. So please, take the week to think about it. And if you decide to join us, great. And if not, no hard feelings. Sound good?"

He knew he should just give his answer now. He shouldn't get her hopes up. Having this tension hanging over his head for the week would slowly drive him to madness, or worse, emptiness. But this was Zoe Murphy. So of course, Evan could only say, "Sounds good," in a choked response.

* * *

It was no surprise Evan stayed home sick the next day. This, combined with the voicemail from the school nurse, had risen enough red flags that Mom tried to call the nursing home to take a personal day. It was only Evan's near-hysterical begging that made her hang up before someone answered, insisting he didn't want to be trouble. He also didn't want the inevitable conversation that would follow.

His mom tried to insist that talking to him was not a burden to her. But the truth was talking to her was a burden to _him_. On his bad days (and today was a Bad Day), it felt like she only wanted to talk to him to make herself feel good as a mother. This made him feel guilty for even _thinking_ something so mean, so he would overcompensate and talk too much. And while he knew these soul-baring conversations made her feel better and closer to him, it drained him and often left him feeling worse than before. Considering he was already exhausted with just the idea of all the communication waiting for him on his still-turned-off cellphone, he absolutely could not deal with anything else today.

"Are you sure about this?" his mom said for the fifth time. She was in her purple scrubs by the door with a backpack of clothes to change into for her night class after. One foot was already out the door, the other was in the kitchen where Evan stood in baggy sweat pants, a slightly tight t-shirt with a happy music note, and bare feet.

"Yeah. I think, b-being by myself will be good

She sighed. "I'm going to call Dr. Sherman to sit up another appointment."

He shrugged, knowing there was no point of getting out of it. He was running low on Xanax anyway.

She seemed ready to leave. She turned and dug her keys out of her purse and everything. But before her foot left the connection, she blurted "Give it to me straight—are you okay? Are you dealing okay with everything from three weeks ago?

He took a deep breath. Being a nurse, his mom knew the symptoms of PTSD better than most. She had talked about the possibility quite a bit with Dr. Sherman the day after Connor's attempt. Meanwhile, Evan had done his own research and learned how to hide his symptoms. As a result, she didn't how he was lucky if he could sleep three hours without waking up in a sweat. She didn't know how loud noises would transform into heart monitor shrieks, ambulance sirens, and buzzsaws without warning. She didn't know the feel of rushing air from an open car window or even a strong fan gave him vertigo because it reminded him of his fall from the tree. No. She didn't know and she didn't need to know because he could handle it. If he could make it through this audition video fiasco, things would settle. Life would become normal and he would get better.

So, knowing full well avoidance was the most easily identified symptom, Evan carefully said, "I'm dealing. I think of it sometimes. But… who wouldn't, right? And it's not as bad as it was. Yesterday's episode was more everyday stress stuff."

She relaxed a bit and started to lean more out the door. "Is Jared helping at all? Jenny mentioned how he'd been spending more time with you lately."

"He's been nice," Evan said automatically, almost hearing the _cha-ching_ of Jared's parents paying for his car insurance.

She now stood fully outside and gave a quick glance to her watch. "Well, if you're sure…"

"I'm sure."

"Oh! And before I forget, I went shopping last night. I got some deli meat and those cheese curds you like."

It was the first thing she had said that had truly given him a real sense of comfort. No calling for delivery. No scrounging the pantry for the last bit of dry cereal and peanut butter. He gave a small smile, "Thanks, Mom."

She winked, "Love ya, kid."

* * *

He was alone for maybe thirty minutes when four perky knocks sounded at the door. Apparently, his reasons for wanting to be alone hadn't been good enough for his mom. Because if it had, Mrs. Lindgren wouldn't be knocking at the door. And Mom only asked Mrs. Lindgren to visit Evan on his mental health days if she was worried about him.

He opened the door. But instead of stepping inside, Mrs. Lindgren grabbed his hand and pulled him out. "Be a dear and help an old woman make some cookies, will you? I got tea time this afternoon with the girls, and it's my turn to bring biscuits."

Since Evan could never say no to Mrs. Lindgren, Evan found himself making lemon honey cookies in her kitchen with pjs, bare feet, and a borrowed apron with "Hunka Hunka Burning Love" written in the front. She talked about her friends (which mostly involved discussing their various health ailments) and asked after his mom (which mostly involved Evan talking about her rigorous work and school schedule). She somehow knew not to bring up the audition, which he was infinitely grateful.

When the cookies were made, Evan sat down with Mrs. Lindgren at the kitchen table and they ate the sweets of their labor with milky tea. When he asked what time tea club was, she airily mentioned how she forgot that tea club was canceled this week, but oh well, at least they got to spend some time together and wasn't that nice?

"Lying is a sin, remember?" Evan said, setting down his floral teacup on its saucer.

"Respect your elders," she grumbled with a smile. "And eat your cookies."

"I already had six."

"Does that mean I sweeten you up enough to ask for a favor?"

"Yeah. Except no singing. I… I have a sore throat."

"It's just a quick computer question." She took a deep breath heaved herself up to her walker and tottered out to the living room and slowly turned to the stairs. She sat down heavily on the motorized chair lift added a few years ago and Evan watched her slowly slide up the stair rail. She waved him to follow, "Well, come on. It'll take just a few minutes."

He was tempted to call her out on her lying again. Her computer questions had never been shorter than twenty minutes. But he dutifully followed. She'd been on a craft kick recently and she'd been trying to print all sorts of sewing patterns, greeting cards, and iron-ons from her printer. Evan assumed the question would be related to this, but if it was something to do with social media, he figured he could open the programs for her and leave before she accessed anything.

He did not expect Mrs. Lindgren to already have Facebook open when he walked into her craft-room office. And he definitely did not expect to see the post that caused all his recent trauma front and center on the monitor.

She sat down heavily in the computer chair and tapped the monitor. "So how do I print this off so you can autograph it?"

Evan didn't say anything. He stayed in the doorway to the office and just stared. There it was. The post he had so carefully avoided, now in the last place he expected it: in the home of his computer illiterate neighbor. He couldn't read the numbers or words from the post at this distance, but he could tell there were a lot of them. A lot more than what he had briefly seen yesterday.

"What… what are people saying?" If Evan could trust anyone to tell him bad news, it would be Mrs. Lindgren. But even still, his muscles clenched so tight that he felt in danger of throwing up.

"You haven't seen?" Evan shook his head and she gave him an arched brow. "They're reacting exactly as I expected." When Evan's face started to fall she tsked, "Stop that right now, Evan Hansen. You know I think the world of your voice. And it turns out, people on FaceTwet feel the same way." She tapped the down button on her keyboard. "Carol says, 'I never knew Asleep could sound like that. Wow.' I told you it was a good idea to make the song uniquely your own, didn't I? And here, Marco says, 'Holy…' well I'm not going to say that next word, but it goes on to say, 'this guy sits next to me in history. I never would have guessed he could sing like this.' Isn't that sweet? Let's see…Nicholas says, 'That kid can sing' and there is a cute face next to it—will you show me how to use those funny faces again? The emotion icons? And a lot of these people are asking when your first performance will be, or they're… what's the word…tugging their friends to look at this post."

"Tagging," Evan corrected. He dared to take a step closer to the screen. "Are people really… are they really saying nice things?"

"I won't lie. There are a few jerks here and there. _But_ ," she said dramatically, making sure Evan was listening before she continued, "Every person who dared to be unkind had many comments from other people defending your talent. And I'm…" her voice choked up and Evan closed the distance. She gratefully grabbed hold his hand and squeezed it tight. "I'm _so_ proud of you, honey. I know it wasn't easy, doing what you did. But God gave you a gift and I _know_ you're going to do amazing things."

"I'm still scared," he whispered. Because although he couldn't bare telling her everything that happened, he didn't want to make her believe in a future that might not exist. "I still don't know if I can do it."

"You can do anything, Evan."

Mrs. Lindgren didn't really get Evan sometimes. She knew he had anxiety and depression, but she was the kind of person who assumed everyone had anxiety and depression. Whenever he tried to make her understand how difficult things could be for his brain, she would wave him off saying he was just a shy kid who would one day grow into his extroverted side. When he blatantly told her he had a mental illness diagnosis, she acted like he had insulted himself rather than stating a simple truth. So when she said things like, "you can do anything," she said it not really understanding that certain things were exponentially harder for him than for others. He didn't hate her for this willful ignorance—she was still a good listener and a kind person. It just made it hard for him to trust in her belief, because she believed in a version of himself that didn't exist.

She patted his hand affectionately. "Just you wait, Evan Hansen. You're going to change this world. I can feel it."

He gave her a forced smile. "We'll see."

* * *

After autographing a printout of his Facebook post, Evan made an excuse and headed home. He paced in his kitchen for a solid twenty minutes before he eventually caved and ran upstairs. He sat down roughly on his bed and grabbed his cellphone from his nightstand. Before he could over-think it, he turned it on, practically holding his breath as he waited for the phone to boot up. The notifications poured out in silent, rapid succession. He cleared them all and opened to the main screen. All of his social media accounts had a "99+" red bubble.

He opened his Facebook first and was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of friend requests, private messages, and wall posts. He didn't dive in, but he glanced through it all and everything seemed… mostly positive. Sometimes, even alarmingly positive. One girl, who Evan had no idea who she was, private messaged him, stating she wanted his tree babies. His cheeks burned red as he navigated back to the original post. He scanned through the comments, finding a lot of what Mrs. Lindgren had said. There were tens of thousands of reactions and hundreds of comments. He visited the YouTube url next and was shocked to see the video had broken over five digits for views. How was this even possible? He went to his Twitter account last. Previously, he had less than fifty followers. Today, he had over a thousand.

He held his phone, stunned and found himself asking the same question he had asked Connor. Was this real? Was this really happening? He touched his throat and looked at the mirror on the wall. He was still the same person. Still a loser. Still hunched over like he was ready for someone to punch him at any moment. Still incredibly awkward at every social encounter. How could one song change everyone's perception so drastically?

Did his voice really have the power to do this?

Still not ready to really think of what it all meant, he went to his text messages next. Only four people had texted him. One was from a known number:

 **JARED:** You ass dick!

 **JARED:** How long have you been able to sing?!

 **JARED:** I think I love you?!

The other three were numbers he didn't have saved in his phone.

 **UNKNOWN 1:** Evan,

 **UNKNOWN 1:** Please send me the following when you have time:

 **UNKNOWN 1:** A headshot, a bio, your previous experience, and the high school character trope you identify with most closely.

 **UNKNOWN 1:** My email is FuturePresident2036 .

 **UNKNOWN 1:** Sincerely,

 **UNKNOWN 1:** Alana

He saved Alana's number and went to the next group of unknown messages.

 **UNKNOWN 2:** Hi, this is Zoe! *waving hand emoji*

 **UNKNOWN 2:** Jared texted the band your phone number, hope this is okay. *goofy, tilted smile emoji*

 **UNKNOWN 2:** I just wanted to say sorry for unloading all my brother drama on you this afternoon. *embarrassed face emoji*

 **UNKNOWN 2:** Whatever you choose, you have my support. *thumbs up emoji*

He saved Zoe's number and then went to the final group of thirty-two messages from one unknown number. They had been sent at various times, with the first one being around ten a.m. yesterday and the most recent one being less than twenty minutes ago. He didn't fool himself. He saved the number as Connor's before he started reading.

 _Yesterday morning._

 **CONNOR:** I did smthing ur not gonna like

 **CONNOR:** *shares link to Facebook post*

 **CONNOR:** Hansen?

 **CONNOR:** Quit being a good student and chk ur phone.

 **CONNOR:** Fuck it, im gonna find u.

 _Yesterday afternoon._

 **CONNOR:** I dont know wat to say

 **CONNOR:** I didnt know what I was doing

 **CONNOR:** I mean I did

 **CONNOR:** I just didnt know waht I was doing specfcaly to u

 **CONNOR:** Sorry

 **CONNOR:** im so fucking sorry

 _Yesterday evening._

 **CONNOR:** So whats this bout us bein friends since this summer?

 **CONNOR:** Ur obviously avoiding me and I get that

 **CONNOR:** But you telling zoe were friends is more than a litle fucking confusing

 **CONNOR:** That and ur thinking of joining the band?

 **CONNOR:** the hell Hansen? Will u fucking do anything as long as its zoe asking?

 _This morning._

 **CONNOR:** u didnt have to avoid school cause of me

 **CONNOR:** sorry about my texts last night

 **CONNOR:** zoe just always does the right thing and I always do the wrong thing and it just gets fucking annoying and tring

 **CONNOR:** but i dont think u know how to say no to people unless they piss u off like me

 **CONNOR:** u might have said u would think about joing the band without rlly meaning it

 **CONNOR:** if thats true, u can back out and ill make sure she blames me for it and not u k?

 _This afternoon._

 **CONNOR:** I skipped school like u

 **CONNOR:** I almost cam to ur house so u could yell or punch me or watever

 **CONNOR:** im looking at fucking trees instead

 **CONNOR:** I dont get why u luv trees

 **CONNOR:** I don't get a lot of things bout u

 **CONNOR:** but u once told me I mattered, even though u clearly dont like a lot of the things Ive done

 **CONNOR:** u mightnot feel that way anymore cause of my fuckup

 **CONNOR:** and I still think it wud be a fucking waste if you didn't sing

 **CONNOR:** but im trying to undrstnd

 **CONNOR:** because you matter too hansen

Evan closed his eyes and held his phone to his forehead. This tiny device held so much. It held the judgment from complete strangers. It held texts from people who could one day be his friends. And it held an apology—an apology he desperately wanted but didn't trust to receive. Separately, these things wouldn't be enough. But together, they gave him the strength and bravery to face the next day. Right now, the idea of his voice being able to touch people and connect him to others was too big to grasp—too big of a dream to hold in his head. But the whisper of it was there. And for the moment, that was enough.


	7. Chapter 7

When Evan woke up, it was four a.m. and his nerves were on fire. His night lamp lit the room like a flash of lightning. His comforter slid down his face like rough sandpaper. When he went into the bathroom, the door clicked behind him like a boom of a canon. Everything was just too much: the water from the shower, the creaking floorboards from his mom walking around downstairs, his reflection in the fogged mirror. He had resolved to go to school no matter what, but now that it was less than three hours away, he felt like he forgot how to function as a person. Did he normally part his hair on the left or right? Did he wear socks with his sneakers? Did he forget to put on underwear? He ran and back forth between his bedroom and bathroom countless times, continuously changing everything, convinced he had gotten something wrong, never quite able to catch his breath.

By six am, his mom had come to his room with a cup of water and made Evan take a Xanax. Normally he just took a low dose of Zoloft every morning, and he hated being supervised because it was as if is Mom didn't trust him to take care of himself. Today, he swallowed both pills in one gulp with no protestations. She sat down on his bed beside him and tried to rub his back, but since Evan's skin was still cranked to eleven, he shuddered away from her touch, gasping a bit where her fingers grazed his shirt.

"Honey, are you sure you're up for school today?"

"Yes, yes. I'm totally fine and ready for school, yes."

"Well… can I at least drive you?"

He could tell she asked expecting him to say no. It was part of Evan's personal practices to not inconvenience his mom in any way. Plus, it wasn't exactly cool to be dropped off by your mom when everyone else his age drove, carpooled, or walked. But Evan didn't think he could walk today—the idea of cars zooming past him was enough to make his skin rise in goosebumps.

"S-sure."

"Really? That's great, sweetie!" She fluttered her hand around a bit, and Evan could feel her fingers' wish to brush his cheek or hair, but to Evan's relief, she resisted. "Hey, why don't I bag next week's shift on Tuesday? We haven't had a Taco Tuesday night in forever."

"Oh, you don't have to—"

"I want to." And then very deliberately, as if she had read instructions in some sort of How To Deal with Your Child Who Has Self-Esteem Issues help book. "I like talking to you and being with you, Evan."

Evan hated himself a little for nodding his head, agreeing with her plan. She smiled so wide and clapped her hands so she could do something with them and it was honestly pretty heartwarming. He liked making him mom happy. It made him happy to make her happy, until it made him feel incredibly selfish asking her for her time. If Heidi Hansen had a neural typical child, she wouldn't have to do things like find therapists, skip work, and make sure he took his medication. What if she would resent calling out of her shift later? What if something happened, like the car engine died and they didn't have enough money to fix it? What if the nursing home director fired her for skipping without just cause? But all the what-ifs didn't matter because today, Evan wasn't strong enough to not rely on her. If this school day went poorly (and how could it not go poorly) and if he rejected (and by that he meant _when_ he rejected) Zoe and Connor's offer to join High School Rejects, it might help to have something to look forward to. Because the days where Heidi and Evan Hansen had nothing to do but spend time with each other were actually pretty great (which made him a giant nerd and a loser, but that was neither here nor there).

So he agreed to the plan for Taco Tuesday. He ate a granola bar as he waited for the Xanax to weigh him down like a leaden blanket. He looked in the passenger mirror, appraising his appearance one last time as his mother drove him to school. And when she parked, he only took one deep breath (any more would concern his mom) and stepped out of the car.

* * *

At first, things seemed normal, which might have something to do with Evan drawing a hoodie over his head, but no one gave him a second look as he walked through the school. He kept his head down and his hands clenched tightly at his backpack straps, grateful for the anonymity. If he could just get his books out of his locker and rush to his first class and kept rushing to every classroom for the rest of the day, he wouldn't have to talk to anybody. Sure, they had said nice things about him online, but what if they forgot that it was _that_ Evan Hansen they were complimenting. You know, the quiet kid with the cast who couldn't talk without sounding like a failure of an auctioneer, and they suddenly got angry at Evan for tricking them into ever thinking he was something better than he actually was? Rushing to classes and hiding his facial features was a good plan for now. Perfect for easing back into the school dynamic without causing any major waves.

But Evan did not anticipate Jared and Alana waiting by his locker.

"There he is!" Jared said, clapping his hands once and gesturing grandly to Evan. "Already dressing like a Hollywood star trying to avoid the paparrazi. What a fucking snob." He gave Evan a "friendly" punch on the shoulder.

Alana stepped up to him and he cringed as she entered his personal space. "Evan, you still haven't sent me the information I asked. As our band's social media coordinator, it is essential that I have all the relevant data when constructing future posts."

"I, uh… did Connor or Zoe talk to you guys?" Evan said, trying to dodge them to get to his locker. Already their words were causing a few kids around them to stare. He hunched into the fabric cave of his hoodie.

"If you are talking about that horrendous post by that Instagram user, don't worry. Zoe already explained to us that you and Connor are friends and that the rumor wasn't true. Congratulations on joining the band by the way, though I do wish Connor would have informed me first. While I appreciate his tenacity in regards to constructing your social media post, I would have preferred to do it myself to maintain structure and tone. I have very detailed plans for our marketing strategy and I don't want any posts to derail it."

"Speaking of Connor's tenacity and your friendship that I'm to understand you've had since this summer…," Jared said, giving him smile that said he clearly didn't believe it. Evan felt his stomach muscles tighten, as though preparing for a physical blow. "How's his penis?" Jared's grin turned salacious. "I'm assuming you've gotten to at least third base with the way Connor's bedroom eyes were leering all over you during that video."

Evan sighed in exasperation. Everything was always about sex with Jared. "We're just friends." He turned to Alana, the tension in his stomach not leaving. "What's this about an Instagram post?"

"You haven't seen it yet?" Alana pulled her phone out and flipped through a few screens before showing it to him. "It was from that same person who posted all those pictures after Connor's drug overdose, NiceTry2001. This post clearly wasn't as effective as the previous ones, given that there is no picture, but it's been reposted more than I would like. We have an image to maintain and baseless rumors like this have the potential to destroy us before we even get started."

Evan reached out to hold Alana's phone steady as she ranted about the sad state of social media when people posted things without fact checking them first, which he tuned it out to focus on the screen. It was a black background with the following words in red font: _Connor Murphy blackmailed Evan Hansen into becoming High School Reject's singer._ Evan begin to tremble. It wasn't true. But it was a closer truth than the one that everyone else assumed: that Evan agreed to sing because him and Connor were friends.

"I'm surprised your _friend_ didn't talk to you about it." Evan hurriedly gave Alana's phone back to avoid eye contact with Jared. Out of everyone, only he had the potential to really know that Evan was lying. Jared continued, " That shit was posted yesterday. That's like a year in cyberspace time."

"It doesn't matter," Alana said importantly. "What matters is that we focus on the band's future and put this matter behind us. Evan, we need to connect at lunch so we can go over your bio. If you have an appropriate headshot on your phone, text it to me. Otherwise, we'll go over photo options later. Did you have time to think about what high school trope you mostly closely identify with? It's for a marketing campaign I have in mind. I myself have chosen 'Class Brain' although 'Goody Two-Shoes' might go better with the self-depreciating tone of our band's name."

"Since I can swear in Dothraki, Klingon, and Elvish, I'm definitely a geek," Jared said confidently. "But geek is the new sexy, so that's cool." He slapped Evan's shoulder. With the Xanax, it wasn't like an electric shock, but it still prickled his skin more than normal. "This guy is clearly a loser."

"Really?" Alana tilted her head. "Are you sure he's not more of a nerd?"

"Eh, only about trees. And 'treeophile' isn't exactly a title worthy of your Breakfast Club knockoff."

"Well, only if Evan's sure?"

The two of them stared at him intensely. Evan backed up a step. "I mean… Jared's not exactly wrong."

Alana clapped her hands. "Perfect. I'll prepare the posts. But by order of our band's co-president, Zoe, I am not allowed to post anything new on our social media outlets until this weekend."

"Pretty sure bands don't have presidents," Jared said.

"Personally, I'm more suited to leadership positions, but I can humbly follow orders when necessary. Though I do wish Zoe had at least provided a reason for her ruling"

"Pretty sure band leaders don't make rulings."

"But just think how much more efficient our practices could be if we implemented Robert's Rules of Order!"

"Yeeeaaah. Good luck with that," Jared hiked up his backpack. "I'm going to class. Evan, you're a dick for not telling me you could sing." Then Jared threw up a sideways peace sign and walked off.

"Remember, we're meeting at lunch," Alana said, before scrambling off to remind Jared of the same thing.

And just as suddenly they were there, they were gone, leaving Evan's head whirling in their wake. He got his books from his locker, but he just stared at the gray vented metal after he closed it. That was… not as bad as Evan expected. And with Zoe's vague request not to have any new social media postings, this thing about him being a singer wouldn't blow up anymore until he made his official decision to quit on Friday. The instagram post was alarming, but not panic attack inducing. Maybe today wouldn't be full of over-the-top surprises. Maybe it would just be little conversations like this with members of High School Rejects, and that would be it. Maybe he could handle this after all.

"Excuse me?" Evan turned and found an excitable boy with giant headphones draped around his neck. "Evan Hansen, right?"

"Uh… yes?"

The boy grinned so big that both rows of teeth were on display. "Michael. Huge fan. Just wanted to tell you I can't wait to see your first performance. You completely rock!"

Michael held out his fist. Evan knew he was suppose to bump it, but there were so many factors to consider. For one, Evan's hands had gone very sweaty ever since Jared started talking about Connor's... dangling participle. Even if Evan clenched his hand into a fist, what if the sweat from his palm was so intense it splattered onto Michael's skin upon impact? Plus, Michael was holding up his left fist, did that mean Evan was supposed to bump with his left fist too? But his left was his broken arm, so could he accidentally hurt himself? And what if there was some sort of ritual afterwards? Evan had seen some people on TV do explosive noises after the bump and some even did elaborate hand claps like a secrete code. Was there a special routine commonly used by his fellow students that Evan was completely ignorant on and oh no, how long had he left Michael just standing there with his fist outstretched, waiting for Evan to make a move?! He needed to stop thinking and act like a normal fucking human being. He had to do something. He had to do something _now_.

Evan reached out. Slapped Michael's fist like it was a high five.

And promptly ran away.

* * *

The morning was awkward, awkward, _awkward_. After the fist slap with Michael in the hallway came his first class with Trisha, who sat two rows in front of him. She gave him a smile and a singular head nod. Evan gave her a corpse grin (which was when his lips and mouth were so dry that they caved over his teeth, making him look like an 80-year-old with poor dental hygiene) and a nod that went up and never went down due to a sudden muscle spasm. After Trisha was history class with Marco who sat next to him and tried to whisper to Evan all class. But Evan was too nervous about making the teacher upset, so all he did in response was give one word answers or no answer at all, leaving him certain that Marco now thought Evan was a pretentious asshole. The next class nobody made eye contact with him or approached him, but Evan could swear that a group near the front were whispering about Connor and "what sort of dirt he had on Evan" to make him sing. The last class before lunch was the worst because it was the teacher, Mrs. Mason, who called on him in the middle of class to read a passage, and then joked that he should sing it, making all the kids agree and beg him to do just that. He stumbled and stuttered through the passage instead and he could just _feel_ everyone's disappointment.

The cafeteria, which Evan had anticipated to be the worst, ended up being the easiest. Apparently, people only wanted to focus on Evan when it meant taking time away from class. But when it came to intruding on their personal time with friends, they were more than content to leave him alone. He found Alana's eagerly waving hand near the back by the large atrium windows. Evan liked these windows, even if the view only showed off the parking lot, because it meant being in the sun (which was good for his depression). But since Jared complained that it made him sweaty, Evan had only sat by lunchroom windows a few times before today.

"Thank you for joining me," Alana said, gesturing to an empty spot across from her. Evan sat down, staring at the spread of notebooks and sheet music sitting alongside her lunch tray and iPad. "We have a lot to cover in 30 minutes. Jared, Zoe, and Connor should be joining us shortly."

"... Connor is coming?"

"Well, probably not. He hasn't come to any other lunch meeting I've set up. But I believe in having an optimistic attitude."

Jared came shortly after, taking great relish in telling a group of people he was with that he had to leave them for "official band business." If he saw a few of those people roll their eyes behind Jared's back, Evan was too kind to say so.

They had to wait for Zoe a few extra minutes, due to the junior class getting let out to lunch later than the senior class. She didn't bother with a lunch tray. She just stomped over to the table, took the empty spot by Evan, and rested her head with a propped elbow.

"Connor isn't coming today," Zoe said. She knocked Evan's leg softly with her knee. It might have just been her settling in, but when he looked over and saw her give a quick wink, he knew that she had somehow arranged it so Evan wouldn't have to talk to him.

Alana sighed. "I still need him to chose a high school trope he identifies with."

"School shooter?" Jared suggested. Then, as if remembering Zoe and Connor were siblings, he gave a nervous laugh. "Just kidding. It's the hair."

"Psychopath?" Zoe said, clearly not caring.

"Neither one is an appropriate trope that social media fans would want to identify with." Alana turned to him. "What do you think, Evan? You two are friends."

"Oh, uh, I don't know if I would feel comfortable—"

"Come on, Evan. Tell us what your _friend_ would be." Jared pressed a sharp elbow into his side.

"I don't know..." He looked at Alana, trying to remember how she had phrased it earlier. "Maybe, if we're, uh, going for that sympathetic self-depreciating tone... maybe... burnout?"

Alana tapped a pen to her chin. "It's not bad. But I still think we—"

"Oh my god." Zoe suddenly stood up and walked over to the windows. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit."

Jared and Evan looked at each other before standing up and walking over to Zoe. They peered out to the parking lot as Alana protested that lunch time was business time. It didn't take long to find what Zoe had seen. Near the school was a green Honda Civic. And sitting on the car's hood was a person Evan had never seen in person, but plenty of times in dozens of Zombie Unicorn videos: Neil Armstrung.

Zoe knocked at the window, trying to get Neil's attention. "Does he want to get murdered by my brother?!"

"Dude looks pretty chill to me," Jared commented.

And he did. Neil was leaning against the hood looking like he didn't have a care in the world. His blond hair, normally done in some sort of pigtails, had been piled on the top of his head in a bun. He also wasn't wearing a kilt, but a pair of jeans and a plain white tee-shirt. Even his beard, which had previously been bushy and wild, had been trimmed to a more GQ length. Overall, he was still the same Neil he recognized, only now he was a cleaned-up version that didn't throw a person off balance with his loud and in-your-face style.

Zoe's knocking got louder and more frantic and she began whispering curses under her breath. It didn't take long to discover why. Connor was purposefully walking toward the car with murder in his posture.

"Sorry, Alana, but I got to go make sure my brother doesn't end up in juvie." And then, like the rockstar she was born to be, Zoe went to the glass atrium's emergency exit, setting off the alarms as she ran outside. The alarms immediately stopped when the door closed, but Evan still felt like a train had roared by without warning. He held a hand to his chest, trying to catch his breath, wondering if he should look away or not.

Then Jared grabbed his wrist and gave a wicked grin. "C'mon, Evan. Let's go make sure your _friend_ is okay."

And then he dragged Evan to the door, opened it (heedless to the teacher shouting a protest behind them), and pulled Evan outside toward the last person Evan wanted to see.

* * *

It felt as though Evan were entering a battlefield as Jared pushed Evan toward Connor's car (although thinking such a simile made Evan wonder how offended an actual veteran would be if they realized Evan thought life-and-death situations were comparable to awkward confrontations in a high school parking lot.) Evan kept darting his head over his shoulder, certain that they would be ambushed at any moment from the teacher in the cafeteria. But he also kept darting his head forward, certain that he was about to witness a crime.

Connor had stormed directly up to Neil and loomed over his former band mate. But while Connor was tall, Neil was broad. And when Neil stood up straight at a clear five inches shorter than Connor, it didn't diminish his presence. If anything, it amplified it. Because here was Neil—calm, collected, and entirely put together as Connor threatened him (or so Evan assumed since they hadn't walked close enough for him to hear the conversation). Connor was a different story. He was thin, his clothes were wrinkled, and his hair limply hung around his pale face that was blotching into pink spots the more he spoke.

As soon as Zoe reached the scene, she took Connor's arm and pulled. He flung her hand away only to point in Neil's face as though he were holding a gun instead of a finger.

Eventually they got close enough (because although Jared had no concept of social privacy, he did have enough intelligence to not rush into a possibly violent altercation) that he could make Zoe's words. "Connor, calm down, we're in—"

"I told him to stay the fuck away from us!" Connor shouted, still pushing her hand away.

"Sorry, Zoe, I didn't realize he would act like this," Neil said. His arms were still crossed casually as he threw an apologetic glance her way.

"He tried to kill your car with a guitar last time he saw you," Zoe said with a raised eyebrow. "What did you think would happen?"

"Funnily enough, that's why I'm here." Neil dug into his back pocket and produced a folded piece of paper. "This is a bill for damages done to my car."

"Fuck you!" Connor snarled.

"Why couldn't you have just mailed it to us?" Zoe exasperated.

"Because he wanted me to freak out!" Connor tried to step past Zoe, who resolutely stood her ground. "This asshole wanted to prove to everyone that I'm nothing more than a psycho."

Zoe waved over Jared and Evan as soon as she saw them. "Can you guys help me out?"

Connor looked over and froze once he saw Evan standing there. Evan similarly couldn't move once Connor's eyes fixed with his. He had known Connor looked bad from a distance, but up close was worse. Dark bags patched the delicate white skin below his eyes, which were bloodshot and puffy. His entire body shook, and Evan couldn't tell if it was from the rage of seeing Neil or evidence of poor self-care. But the thing that struck Evan in the chest was his expression. It wasn't just his eyes, that were full of guilt, rage, and sadness, but his posture—as though Evan would strike him at any instant.

And for a moment, Evan's heart bled for him.

"So you're Evan Hansen," Neil said, walking toward him, taking advantage of Connor's moment of being frozen. He held out a hand. "Neil Armstrung."

Evan looked over Neil's shoulder to Connor, who still wasn't moving. He just stared at Evan, as though waiting for him to fire the final bullet that would end him. And Evan somehow knew that if he were overly friendly with Neil, it would break something in Connor. He didn't know how he knew that, but his therapist did say he had an over-developed sense of empathy. He looked back to Neil and held his hands behind his back. "S-Sorry. My hands are sticky from lunch."

It was possibly the lamest excuse ever and Evan hated himself for being here. Not only was he snubbing one of his music idols, he was doing it for Connor's sake. Connor, who was making it incredibly hard for Evan to remember his anger. He shouldn't want to do anything for a person who broke his trust so horribly, even if he wanted to prove to Zoe and Jared that the two were friends. But when Connor's defensive posture slackened, when Connor gave a hesitant smile at his response to Neil, it felt good. And he hated that making Connor feel good had someone become a priority for him—especially when Connor didn't offer the same consideration for him.

"No problem," Neil said easily. "That's a killer voice you got."

"I, uh, thank—"

"What's going on out here?" The teacher Evan had feared would come had suddenly snuck-up behind them. It was Mrs. Jacobs, the same person who had hosted Zoe and Connor's auditions. Her face was stern and looked ready to dole out punishment until her eyes found Neil and they brightened. "Oh, Neil, I didn't realize you were already here."

"Hey, Mrs. J," Neil said, with a teasing salute. "Your offer to sit in on classes this afternoon still good?"

"You're not going to steal one of my jazz band students again, are you?"

He laughed. "While I don't doubt your ability as a teacher, I don't think I'll find another Zoe Murphy."

Zoe blushed and cleared her throat. "Sorry, Mrs. Jacobs. We, uh, saw him in the parking lot and decided to say hi?"

Well, Evan had officially found something Zoe wasn't good at. She was a _terrible_ liar. She didn't meet Mrs. Jacobs' eyes and what should have been a statement ended in a question.

"It's actually my fault." Jared stepped up with a charming grin. "I fanboyed when I saw Neil in the parking lot and Zoe agreed to introduce me. Jared Kleinman, by the way." Jared held out his hand, which Neil shook with a bit of a confused air.

She sighed. "Next time, don't use the emergency exits, or I'll be writing you up."

"S-sorry," Evan stumbled.

"Yeah, we're super sorry." Jared said. "Just like I'm sure everyone who followed you out here is super sorry."

Evan turned further around and to his dismay, a good chunk of students that had been in the cafeteria had filtered outside. A handful even had their smartphones out and pointed in their direction. Obviously, everyone expected Connor and Neil to get into some sort of fight. Mrs. Jacobs sighed and walked back to the crowd. But her reprimands didn't deter anyone. If anything, the presence of a teacher confirmed their beliefs that something bad was about to happen, so they only got closer.

Evan felt like a spectacle and wanted to turn inside out just so he wouldn't have to be the center of their probing stares. But since that wasn't possible, he leaned into Jared's side, trying to signal that he wanted to leave. Of course that was a stupid idea. Jared wasn't exactly good with subtle, and he only gave Evan an annoyed look and stepped away from him. Between Jared and Neil, it was hard to tell who looked the most outwardly chill, as if they didn't mind half a dozen cellphones were pointed their way. At least Evan wasn't the only uncomfortable one. Zoe turned her back to the crowd and Connor shot them the darkest of glares.

"So, Evan," Neil spoke and Evan couldn't help but notice how his voice had suddenly gotten louder and more enunciated, as though he wanted to make sure everyone could hear him. "Is it true that Con Man blackmailed you into joining his band?"

Neil was still smiling congenially, as though he hadn't said something that caused the small crowd to hush into whispers. The crowd, who had stared equally at Neil, Connor, Zoe, Jared, and himself before, now fixed their eyes to Evan.

Before this moment, Evan thought all of Connor's anger toward Neil was strictly due to Neil and Natalie signing to a label without Zoe and Connor. But now Evan had to wonder if there was something deeper. Because Evan had very little confidence that Neil, who seemed masterful at instigating drama without appearing to mean it, could be a novice at such a manipulative technique.

Jared raised his eyebrows, as if he almost respected Neil's audacity. Zoe looked at Evan expectantly, no doubt waiting for him to deny the allegation. And Connor, well... Connor just sort of laughed and looked off in the distance.

"That's not true." It was the truth, but Evan's voice was so shaky that he knew that it would sound like he was lying.

Neil's casual expression disappeared and he stepped closer, looking concerned. "Hey. If he's threatened you in some way, you can tell me. He can't hurt you here."

"N-no, that's not it."

"Him and Connor are friends, Neil," Zoe said. But as she said it, she looked doubtful and started staring at Evan.

"Yeah. Friends. How did that happen again?" Jared asked, stepping closer to Neil, as though siding with him in an unspoken argument.

Evan just shook. Everything was falling apart. Everyone would find out he was a coward who couldn't handle singing without someone tricking him into to it. Zoe would realize that he had lied about everything and never speak to him again. He didn't know why Jared was helping Neil, except maybe he just wanted to shove it in Evan's face later that he knew he had been lying.

"I... I..."

"They were friends since this summer, right Evan?" Zoe almost sounded desperate now and Evan felt her panic keenly in his throat. He looked to Connor who was still looking off into the distance with that strange smile on his face.

"This is a safe space," Neil said and patted his bicep.

That did it. Because this was clearly not a safe space. With dozens of people listening to every word they were saying (and why wasn't Mrs. Jacobs doing anything to get them inside?!), this was far from being a safe space. Neil hadn't done anything to warrant his trust. But it sure looked good on camera if Neil approached Evan like he was a skittish deer and made him admit that Connor was some sort of villain. What if this was the same thing Alana was doing—some sort of marketing campaign to make him look good?

Evan stepped away. "I'm not lying. Connor has been my friend since... I don't know... end of May, early June?" It wasn't said with the confidence he had wanted, but at least Evan was getting more specific. "He was a regular visitor to Ellison State Park where I interned this summer and we just... I don't know, got close?"

For the first time, Jared looked hesitant and Evan felt good seeing it on his face. Neil didn't buy it.

"I know that place." Neil smiled sympathetically. "I also know that's where Connor likes to park. As in not get out of his car." He gave him a look that somehow conveyed sympathy and judgment simultaneously. "Are you saying you somehow encouraged Connor to leave this tin bucket?" He knocked on the Honda Civic's hood with his knuckles.

Connor didn't stop his staring into the distance , but he did say, "Get your fucking hands off my car, Armstrung."

Neil just looked at Evan, waiting to be proven right.

"Evan?" Zoe whispered.

His lies weren't enough. People knew enough of his and Connor's character to realize that such a meetup wouldn't have happened. The school loser and the school burnout were natural loners. Evan's nerves kept him from reaching out; Connor's anger kept others from reaching to him. And before his eyes, he saw Zoe put the pieces together the same time her hope broke apart. She turned to Connor, still staring at nothing. Betrayal poured from her skin and Evan knew if he didn't do something right now, everything would fall apart.

"He was there when I broke my arm!" Evan blurted out, practically yelling the words. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. The first day of school he had told Jared he had been alone in a forest after the fall. But he was committed. And if he talked fast enough, maybe Jared wouldn't have the opportunity to contradict to him.

"There's this big oak tree in Ellison State Park, and well, not to brag or anything, but I'm kind of a tree expert. And, well, I thought that it be cool to climb it. And I got almost to the top, and it was nice, like, I felt the sun shine on my face, and it was calm. That is, until I reached for a branch and it broke." Evan was rambling. He needed to focus. He needed to bring Connor into the narrative. "Anyway, this tree is really close to the parking lot and it was later in the day and the rangers weren't patrolling the area. But Connor was there, and he... he came to get me."

Evan gasped for air. His skin felt like it had been dosed in rubbing alchohol. It felt cool and slightly abrasive, but there was something that felt right about it. As though he had cleaned some part of him that was dirty. He looked to Connor who now stared at him with undreadable eyes.

"He took me to the hospital," Evan said, not breaking eye contact with Connor, willing him to not only support the lie, but to believe it. "He made sure I wasn't alone. And, we'll, that was that."

"Why didn't you just say that before?" Zoe asked, but Evan saw it was just a throwaway question. She believed him. And she was looking at Connor with those hopeful eyes again.

"It... it was a bad day for me." Evan said softly. "I don't really like to think of it." Which was the understatement of the year. He looked at Jared with pleading eyes. Pleading not only for him to not contradict him, but to at least partially understand why Evan would lie about such a thing in the first place.

"There you have it," Connor said abruptly. "You happy, now that you made Hansen talk about something that triggers his anxiety? Or should we keep talking until you look good in front of the cameras?"

Just like that day in the hallway, when Evan had laughed in relief prompting Connor to shove him, Evan laughed in relief again. Only this time when Connor walked over to him, he awkwardly patted him twice on the shoulders with both hands, making Evan laugh again.

"You're too pure for this world, aren't you, Connor?" Evan said, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

Connor smiled (even if it didn't reach his eyes). "You know me, Hansen. Pure as the fucking snow."

Then the two suddenly seemed to realize they were too close. That Evan was still angry at Connor. That Connor was still avoiding Evan. But they couldn't stop just being close to each other. They had a lie to sell now. So they stood there awkwardly next to each other, not sure what to do next.

Then Jared coughed, "Are you sure you two are just friends?"

Connor flipped him off the same time Evan went scarlet. Thankfully, Zoe just rolled her eyes and threw her arm around Evan's shoulders. She reached for the folded paper in Neil's hand with her free hand. "I trust we're done here?" She asked Neil.

"We're done." Neil said, still maintaining his composure (although Evan could swear his smile now held a bitter tinge). To Connor, he said, "I'm glad you made a friend." The word "finally" was unsaid, but everyone heard it regardless.

Then Neil walked off to the school building, no doubt to get to the music room. Mrs. Jacobs stepped away from the group of students gratefully and walked with him. A few kids from the crowd watched Evan, Connor, Zoe, and Jared for a bit longer, but most had lost interest and walked away.

"What a condescending dick," Jared said conversationally (once the last smartphone had stopped recording).

Zoe shrugged. "He's not so bad. These two just bring out the worst in each other."

"I thought you and Neil would have gotten along," Connor said bitingly.

"Hey, I'm loyal to our band first," Jared said, giving Evan a significant look. Some of the leftover tension Evan felt at his lie lessened. Jared clearly knew he wasn't telling the truth, but for whatever reason (for the good of the band?), Jared wouldn't out him. "That doesn't mean I'm not going to suck-up to local rock heroes when they show up at my school."

"Hey!" Alana ran up to them, clearly a little winded.

"Where did you come from?" Zoe said, a bit bewildered.

"The front entrance. I, unlike the rest of you, obey fire codes and respect that emergency exits are only to be used for emergencies." She took a few more breaths and then smiled brightly. "So what did I miss? As a valued member of this band, I think it's important that I stay apprised of the interpersonal relationships we share with out community musicians."

"Neil was trying to start a fight. Connor was playing into his hands. Evan shut them up by being his usual earnest, honest self."

Evan looked down, hoping the sting he felt from Zoe's words came across as embarrassment instead of guilt.

"Will I find anything on social media later that will derail my marketing campaign?"

"Nah. If anything, Evan just enhanced our band's image. Apparently, Connor saved Evan in a moment of crisis, which blossomed into a beautiful friendship," Jared said.

"Perfect," Alana said. "This will play perfectly into my planned image for Connor: a rebel with a heart of gold."

"No," Connor deadpanned.

"We need to revamp your public image," Alan insisted. "We need to counteract the things NiceTry2001 has posted. We can't exactly debate the truth when there is photographic evidence, but we can convince—"

"You do realize we're a band, right?" Connor said, suddenly stepping forward. "All this social media is bullshit. The music is what matters."

"Social media is important, too. It's what's going to allow us to—"

"Are you practicing your guitar as much as you're obsessing with this?"

"Lay off, Connor. She's good at this," Zoe protested.

"Can you say the same about her guitar playing?"

Alana bit her lip and Jared whistled low. "Harsh, dude."

Connor stared intently at Alana (and for the briefest moment, Evan admired Connor's ability not to shy away from confrontation). "We asked her to be in the band to play, not to be our manager."

"What's wrong with her being both?" Zoe argued.

"Nothing, as long as she keeps her fucking priorities straight. Music is the only thing the matters."

"That's not true," Evan said. And strangely, it was Connor's example of confrontation that prompted Evan to speak, even if it meant speaking out against him. He allowed himself to feel his anger and to let go of the sadness he felt for Connor upon first seeing him. He held Conner's eyes (although not as directly as Connor had done to Alana earlier), "There are other things that matter, too."

Connor stared at him for a long time, nodded, and then without a word, walked away. Zoe and Jared gave Evan looks of awe.

"If we're all going to have two jobs in this band, I vote Evan's second role is Connor Wrangler." Jared joked.

 _If I stay in the band_ , Evan thought.

Wait.

Did he really just think "if?"

Evan brought a shaking hand to his mouth. What happened to his definitive no? What happened to his dread from wondering how to break the news to social media and Zoe? He clenched his throat, realizing that dread had transformed into dealing with smartphones pointing at him and personal questions from people he didn't trust. It wasn't a yes to accepting his position into the band, which no doubt would have turned his dread into straight panic. But it wasn't a no either.

"He never listens to anybody like that," Zoe said, dropping her arm from Evan's shoulder. Her smile was a bit sad as she added, "Guess you two really are friends, huh?"

"I guess," Evan said, watching Connor's back as he walked away.

If he joined the band, this could be his life. He could meet everyday with Alana to discuss marketing strategies. Jared wouldn't be embarrassed to talk to him in public. Zoe would feel so comfortable with him that she would keep casually touching him, which was a level of trust he never thought he'd be granted. All it would cost was his vulnerability and the facade of Connor's friendship. It was a big price. Not only because of his anxiety issues, but because the idea of maintaining the lie exhausted him. And their friendship would likely remain a lie indefinitely, for Evan couldn't imagine a future where he would ever trust Connor again.

(Even if a large part of him desperately wanted Connor's friendship.)

It might have been the Xanax. It might have been surviving his first public confrontation with cameras. It might have been feeling like he had a group of friends for the first time in his life. But when Evan considered the high price for living this life, he thought (for the first time) that he might be able to afford it.


End file.
